


Biology, Baby

by outlier



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alpha Clarke Griffin, Alpha!Clarke, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Anal Plug, Anal Sex, Anya/Raven Reyes mentioned, Breast Fucking, F/F, G!P, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Omega Lexa, Omega!Lexa, Past Finn Collins/Clarke Griffin, Rimming, Strap-Ons, and now a touch of angst, and you just have to work through some stuff okay, when you can't square what society tells you about yourself with what you think about yourself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-10 11:29:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 60,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11126145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outlier/pseuds/outlier
Summary: Lexa's thesis defense was in a few days, which made her unexpected early heat inopportune, to say the least. Why Anya apparently thought the best way to be supportive was by procuring Lexa a random Alpha to help her get everything under control before her defense rolled around was a mystery, but here the girl was, standing in her living room, seemingly happy to help and disturbingly unruffled. (AKA, smut.)**This has turned into an episodic work wherein one shots will be added at random. The story follows a linear narrative if not one that actually ties together in a coherent storyline. So, as Lexa would say (in this story), there's that...**





	1. Just a heat hook-up

**Author's Note:**

> Although this story doesn't delve heavily into the A/B/O world and its dynamics, there is an overarching theme of being influenced by hormones so that uncharacteristic decisions are made.
> 
> Also, think of this as an episodic fic instead of a linear narrative. Things progress in linear time, but each chapter is more like a one-shot.

“I was told there’s a fucking emergency.” The girl paused, brow wrinkled. “I mean, an emergency fucking. That I’m here to provide.” Her brow wrinkled further, as if aware she should probably find a more polite way to couch her words but not quite sure what that way might be. “I mean, I’m here to help.”

Lexa could only blink at the slightly breathless girl standing in her doorway. She had long blonde hair, pretty blue eyes, and the flushed cheeks of someone either a little out of shape or a little drunk. If it was the former, Lexa couldn’t help but think it’d be a little ironic since the girl seemed to be wearing sweatpants as actual pants as a deliberate aesthetic choice. 

“I think you have the wrong apartment,” she said cautiously, already on the way to closing the door in the girl’s face when her sister Anya slid under her arm and through the remaining space.

“And, I’m out,” Anya said, giving the girl an acknowledging nod which was returned in kind. “Much appreciated, Clarke. I’m at your place until tomorrow morning or until you get back. Whenever.”

Before she could question Anya further, because whatever this ridiculousness would turn out to be, it was undoubtedly her fault, Anya was already down the stairs and on the way to the parking lot.

“Yeah, so,” the girl – Clarke, apparently – said, tugging the zipper of her hoodie up and down in a rapid motion that Lexa ached to still, “can I come in?”

Lexa would have said no, but the door across the hallway opened up, and the last thing she wanted to do was have a discussion about fucking emergencies or emergency fuckings within earshot of anyone she’d have to see and mostly ignore pretty much every day.

“So, I’m Clarke, obviously,” the girl continued, apparently unruffled by the way Lexa had jerked her inside and slammed the door behind her, judging by how she’d simply shed her hoodie to reveal a thin white tank top that barely met the waistband of her low slung sweats instead of protesting the rough treatment. “You’re Anya’s sister Lexa, right?”

The girl was toeing out of her sneakers in a way that was making Lexa’s heartrate skyrocket because it implied that she actually expected to _stay_.

“How do you know Anya?” she asked, which wasn’t what she’d meant to say at all, but it was disconcerting, seeing someone she’d known for less than 3 minutes casually strip out of her socks.

“Raven’s my roommate.”

Now that she said it, it did seem like Lexa knew, in some distant way, that her sister Anya’s girlfriend Raven had a roommate named Clarke who had stumbled home drunk more than once to, in Anya’s words, “Wake the whole fucking neighborhood like some of us aren’t responsible adults with jobs and shit.”

Before Lexa could even get out her next question, Clarke had whipped off her tank top to reveal the sports bra underneath and closed the distance between them, leaning in far too close for comfort as she said, “You smell delicious.”

Lexa yelped and nearly tripped over her own feet taking a hurried, clumsy step back. “Wait,” she stressed, holding up a hand. “There’s been some kind of misunderstanding, because you’re thinking… I’m not entirely sure what you’re thinking, but I can guess.”

Clarke tilted her head to the side quizzically. “So you’re not the Omega with the early heat problem who’s supposed to present her thesis in a couple of days?”

“Well yes, but…”

“Because Raven said that Anya said that you couldn’t push it back because then you wouldn’t have enough time to get your paperwork in for Spring graduation and so you needed an Alpha to help you out. And then she said that Anya said I should come over and help you take care of it, so here I am.”

Yes, Lexa thought, mind so overwhelmed it had gone blank. There she was, in her low slung sweatpants that weren’t doing anything to hide her already half-hard cock, with her frankly amazing breasts straining at the fabric of her sports bra, and smelling so unfairly mesmerizing that Lexa was having trouble focusing. Raven’s roommate who, if Lexa was remembering correctly, wasn’t even yet old enough to legally drink since no one in the household was. It was why Anya always had to buy the liquor whenever they had a party.

She was going to _kill_ Anya.

“Look,” she said quickly, because Clarke had her thumbs in the waistband of her sweatpants and Lexa had a feeling that they’d end up on her floor soon if she didn’t stop her, “I’m sorry you came all the way over here, but I had nothing to do with this. The last thing I need right now is some random Alpha trying to save me with her dick, okay? Everything’s under control.”

Clarke simply looked at her, chin tilted down so that those blue eyes were looking up at Lexa from beneath her lashes in a way Lexa found exceedingly disconcerting to her sense of _this is who I am as a person_ and _I, as a person, will never have sex with an Alpha I’ve just met, no matter what the circumstances might be_. “Are you sure? Because you’re seriously hot, and Raven made it sound like you were going to flunk out of school if you didn’t get this handled, so I kind of feel like I have a sworn duty to help you out.”

Lexa decided the girl’s confidence wasn’t in the least attractive. It absolutely did not center her attention on the wetness between her legs, or the way said wetness had been growing exponentially in response to the infuriating Alpha standing before her so that she was pretty sure a change of underwear would be needed before she could return to anything productive.

“I’ll be fine,” Lexa said, voice less certain than she would have liked, unable to be unaware of the fact that it was getting more difficult to concentrate the longer she delayed pushing the girl out of her apartment and locking the door behind her. It was just that she was perhaps unable to completely avoid the sight of Clarke’s cock pressing against her sweatpants in her peripheral vision, and it was distracting, as such things were. Anyone faced with the same circumstance would find their attention torn. Anyone. “This isn’t my first heat. I’ll… I’ll make it through.”

She hadn’t been imagining things, she realized, caught up in a smell that would make even the most stalwart Omega’s mouth water. Clarke was inching closer, watching her intently and biting gently on her lower lip and being half-naked and gorgeous, like those were things Lexa could just _ignore_.

“Yeah,” Clarke said, stepping forward so that the space between them could be measured in inches, “you probably could. I don’t doubt you.”

She wasn’t going to give in, Lexa reminded herself. No matter how much she wanted to see what was under that sports bra or wrap her hand around the now fully hard cock outlined with sinful clarity by the soft cotton of those sweatpants, because she wasn’t the kind of girl who’d spread for the first attractive Alpha who happened along just because she was going into heat. Early, and honestly, rather disastrously timed.

“So…” Lexa began, losing her train of thought as Clarke’s scent settled even more firmly around her. “So if you could…”

Then again, would it be so bad? She’d had Betas and Omegas help her with her heat before with generally exemplary results, and sex with an Alpha was supposed to be even more effective at cutting through the haze that would otherwise envelop her for days if she tried to go it alone. Clarke was already here and, as she’d noted more than once, she smelled so good, so what did it matter if they’d never met before and she was probably an undergrad and she definitely thought it was appropriate to show up for a hook-up in _sweatpants_? The last thing Lexa wanted was to try and explain two years of work to her thesis committee with her mind clouded by hormones that made it difficult for her to even remember words with multiple syllables, much less say them.

And so what if Clarke was just waiting patiently, as if she already knew that Lexa was going to crumble.

“I’m going to kill Anya,” she reiterated, this time out loud.

The girl was a good kisser, Lexa decided, having hauled Clarke to her by the back of her neck. She wasn’t too aggressive with her tongue, using it in a way that made Lexa want more, and maybe there was something to be said for the way her cock seemed to settle into the vee of Lexa’s hips just right. Maybe there was also something to be said about the way she took over when Lexa’s fingers scrabbled helplessly against the band of her sports bra, leaning back far enough to whip it over her head with practiced ease. There was most definitely something to be said about her breasts, which filled Lexa’s hands to overflowing and felt wonderfully soft against her lips.

“Fuck,” Clarke hissed, fingers digging into Lexa’s shoulder as Lexa’s teeth closed around her nipple. “Shit, babe, can we take this somewhere horizontal?”

Lexa pulled her mouth away from Clarke’s breast long enough to say, “Don’t call me babe,” before returning to what she was provisionally allowing to be her new favorite activity.

Unphased, Clarke wound an arm around Lexa’s waist and pulled her in close. “Please? Because I’m dying to go down on you, and hardwood floors kill my knees.”

“Yes,” Lexa hissed, immediately taking Clarke’s hand in hers and pulling her down the hallway. “ _Fuck_. I don’t do things like this.”

She most definitely didn’t do things like this with people who slid a hand into the back pocket of her jeans and moaned, “Your ass is amazing,” or who pulled their sweatpants down to reveal Star Wars boxer briefs.

“I thought it was an emergency,” Clarke mumbled, somehow aware of Lexa’s unamused expression in the midst of helping her shed her jeans. “Next time I’ll wear fancy ones.”

Lexa was on the verge of pointing out that there would be no next time when Clarke shoved at her shoulders, sending her flying back onto the bed. She landed with a bounce, immediately curling up onto her elbows to protest the annoyingly Alpha move, but Clarke was already between her legs, running a tongue along the outside of her panties.

“I knew it,” Clarke said as if to herself, nuzzling against wet cotton with an extremely pleased look on her face. A few seconds later and Lexa’s panties were gone, abandoned somewhere at the foot of the bed, and Clarke’s tongue was pressed against her. And maybe they had only known each other for maybe 20 minutes, Lexa reflected, but that didn’t mean Clarke didn’t _know_ her. Judging by the way she had to force herself to relax so that she wouldn’t clamp her legs around Clarke’s head too tightly, Clarke absolutely knew her.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Clarke said, pausing only long enough to look up at the way Lexa was digging her shoulders into the mattress and rolling her hips up in a silent plea for more. “You can get a little rough.”

Not that sweetheart was all that much of an improvement over babe, but Lexa decided she’d have to argue it later. At the moment, she was too busy fisting Clarke’s hair and pressing up against her mouth to be drawn into a semantic argument.

Her orgasm was, simply put, phenomenal.

“You taste so good. I knew you would,” Clarke was saying, having climbed up her body so that they were kissing again, but Lexa was too busy trying to regulate her breathing into something slightly less frantic than borderline hyperventilation to do anything more than dig her fingers into Clarke’s back and try to keep up. “You’re on birth control, right? Because I just got checked out and I’m clean and fuck, I want to feel you.”

Lexa nodded dazedly, only half understanding what she was saying until she felt the tip of Clarke’s cock pressing against her, hot and slippery with pre-cum.

“Oh,” she said, voice breathless as Clarke started to press into her. “You want to… oh…”

Clarke froze, looking momentarily sheepish. “Yeah. Is that okay?”

Lexa knew she shouldn’t necessarily be making a decision like that when Clarke was already a few inches in, when she could feel the promise of the way Clarke was going to fill and stretch her, but a primal part of her was already anticipating the way it’d feel when Clarke came and she was filled with hot cum and…

“Yeah,” she said on a gasp, wrapping her legs around Clarke’s waist and tugging her forward. “ _Please_.”

She was pretty sure she started saying the kinds of things she’d told herself she was never going to say, about how big Clarke was and how good it felt to stretch around her, and about how Lexa wanted her to fill her with cum and knot her and just keep fucking her, fuck yes, just like that, but it was _biology_. It wasn’t her fault. Besides, Clarke was saying the same kinds of things, a mantra of _you’re so beautiful, you feel so good, you’re so tight around me baby, come for me, I’m going to come for you, fill you up_ …

That Lexa had never actually taken a knot before was something she vaguely thought she should mention. She’d always heard it was overwhelming, and when she wasn’t a shuddering mess of hormones and pheromones, it actually sounded a little intimidating. What she managed, instead, was to wrap her legs around Clarke’s waist as Clarke reared up onto her knees, pulling Clarke in even as she reached up to roll Clarke’s nipple between her fingers with a bit more force than she’d exerted up until that point because it was kind of impossible to keep her hands off those breasts when they were in grabbing distance.

She could feel herself stretching, could literally feel each millimeter of give and the way her skin seemed to burn with it. It seemed like something unconquerable, like Clarke was simply going to continue to split her open until her body couldn’t take it any longer, then suddenly she was over the apex and her body was drawing Clarke in and holding her tight. Lexa registered it as a thing that had fucking happened, holy _fuck_ , before it seemed like her body was determined to literally crawl right out of itself with how good it felt. It was a kind of pleasure that was overwhelming, that made her eyes roll back and her teeth itch to bite down. She heard a breathy scream and realized it was her own even as she felt the first throb of Clarke coming inside her and she wondered how long she’d been coming herself, and if it would ever stop.

She maybe disconnected from reality for a little while. When she returned to it, she catalogued the way she felt – ridiculously full, and with the bone deep satisfaction of having been well fucked – and remembered that she didn’t even know the last name of the girl who had delivered said fucking. She ran a hand down Clarke’s back awkwardly, not quite sure what to do with herself now that her mind was clear and her body was intimately tied to the girl who’d shown up at her door only an hour before.

“So, uh…,” she said, uncomfortable with the silence even though Clarke seemed perfectly happy to remain plastered to her sleepily, face tucked into Lexa’s neck, “what’s your major?”

Clarke stirred, looking up at her with brows raised high in amusement, and laughed. “You’re adorable,” she said, stretching up to kiss Lexa lazily, like casual intimacy was a perfectly normal reaction to the situation. The movement caused Clarke to shift within her, and Lexa hissed, head thrown back in unexpected pleasure as a sharp wave of it rolled through her. Clarke noticed and began to move with purpose. The pleasure continued to build with each and every gentle roll of Clarke’s hips, and Lexa wanted to complain about how unfair it was that she could be reduced to this just because an Alpha’s knot was sliding and pressing against just the right spot inside of her, but her brain wasn’t in any state to carefully marshal arguments.

“And, uh,” Clarke continued, voice not quite steady as she pushed up onto her forearms in a bid for better traction, “I’m pre-med. Minoring in art. You?”

Lexa ran her nails up Clarke’s back mindlessly, some part of her thrilling to the hiss it garnered, and somehow managed to answer. “I’m finishing up my master’s in Security Studies and Conflict Resolution.”

“Oh. That’s cool.” Clarke leaned down to nip at her collarbone before working her way up to her neck and Lexa wrapped a hand in her hair – tightly, in case Clarke had any illusions about moving away from whatever she was doing that felt so delicious. “What… what would you do with that?”

“Continue on to finish up my doctorate and then maybe go work somewhere like the Plowshares Fund or USAID or…” Lexa trailed off, eyes fluttering shut as she planted her feet against the mattress so that she could meet Clarke’s movements with her own, slow and deep and possibly one of the most obscenely sensual things she’d ever done. “I’m sorry. Can we talk about this later?”

“Please,” Clarke groaned helplessly. “I’m sure you’re really fucking smart, which is hot, but right now, I kind of just want to make you come.”

Lexa whimpered, and decided she’d be embarrassed by it later.

That Clarke whimpered in return helped somewhat. “Want to be on top this time, baby?” she asked, drawing her teeth lightly along the line of Lexa’s neck. “I want to watch you.”

In lieu of answering, Lexa bucked her hips in a way that demonstrated her willingness. She eased up onto her knees as Clarke rolled so that she was straddling her, and took a moment to enjoy the angle before reaching down and wrapping a hand around Clarke’s throat. “I have a name,” she growled, leaning down so that her face was hovering over Clarke’s, “and I’d prefer it if you used it instead of baby or sugar or darling or whatever else you might come up with.”

Clarke blinked, then darted up to lick her way across Lexa’s lower lip. “Sure, Lex. Yeah. Whatever you want.”

It was good enough, Lexa decided, resettling herself on her knees and removing her hand.

“Wait,” Clarke said, catching her wrist and relocating Lexa’s hand back to her throat. “I kind of liked it.”

\------

She was pulling her sheets out of the dryer when Anya finally decided to slink back home.

“Lexa,” Anya said warily.

“You’re dead to me.”

“Really?” Anya sidled up beside her, casting a meaningful glance down at her laundry. “Because when Clarke got back to Raven’s this morning, it looked like she’d been rode hard and put away wet so maybe you should be thanking me?”

Lexa glared at her with a murderous impassivity that would have shaken Anya to her core if she hadn’t long ago learned to ignore it. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

Anya shrugged innocently. “So should I just plan on staying at Raven’s until after your defense or what?”

“I’m going to kill you when I find some free time in my schedule,” Lexa said, sweeping up the laundry basket and heading into her room. A second later, her head popped back out through the door frame, and she glared at Anya once again. “But yes, you should.”

The look of surprise on Anya’s face was genuine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few days after her defense, Lexa texts Clarke and asks her to dinner as a thank you for her assistance. Clarke is still infuriatingly informal and far more blase about the whole thing than Lexa could ever imagine being, but Lexa can't pretend like she doesn't like her, even if she finds the whole thing frustratingly confounding.
> 
> (Side note: Clarke wears pants to their dinner, like an actual adult Lexa could be okay with being seen with in public.)
> 
> (Side note part 2: She also follows through with the fancy underpants, which Lexa totally deposits on her bedroom floor later that night even though she lies to Anya about engaging in any such shenanigans the next day.)
> 
> And so, a beautiful relationship is born, providing much entertainment to all who get to witness its haphazard and puzzling progression.
> 
> Such is my summarized head canon for what would come next, which I offer up in lieu of actually writing it all out because I was really only here for the smut, yo. :)
> 
> (And fratboy Clarke, because I'm as oddly taken with her as Lexa is.)


	2. In which Lexa will not abide anyone making Clarke feel self-conscious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up: This chapter contains anal sex (with Lexa topping), lots of cum, philosophical contemplation of (and actual performance of) cocksucking, multiple mentions of motherfucking Finn Collins, and the subversion of some of the A/B/O tropes/general themes though hopefully in keeping with the trope overall as it's envisioned in this particular story. Also, Lexa continues to be stubbornly, likely intentionally, not self-aware.
> 
> It is also set at some vague point in the future, after Lexa and Clarke have been in each other's lives for at least a little while.

_‘U need 2 come get your gf. She’s drnk.’_

Lexa leaned back in her chair and stretched her neck, sighing as she felt the satisfying pop of vertebra.

‘Of course she is.’ She typed in response to Anya’s text. ‘It’s Friday night.’

For Lexa, Friday nights meant reading until her eyes couldn’t focus on the words anymore, so that she’d be able to spend most of the weekend relaxing without feeling too guilty about not being buried in schoolwork. For Clarke, Friday nights meant parties – big or low-key or something in between – and jumping into Lexa’s arms like an enthusiastic puppy whenever Lexa came by to pick her up.

_‘Yeah but she’s telling evry1 how good it feels when you fck her w ur big dick.’_

Lexa had already snagged her keys by the time the call connected.

“She’s doing what?” she asked, throwing a jacket over her arm and grabbing her purse.

Instead of answering, Anya laughed the hearty laugh of the intoxicated. “Why didn’t you tell me I was living with a verifiable professional-level cocksmith?”

“Anya,” Lexa snapped impatiently. “Explain to me how this is a thing that Clarke is talking about.”

“You know how she gets,” Anya said in a ‘what can you do?’ tone of voice. “They were playing never have I ever or something, I don’t know, and I guess it came up.” She paused, snorted. “Came up. Kind of like you, am I right? You know, when you strap it on and fuck your Alpha girlfriend.”

“Listen to me very closely,” Lexa said, voice low and dangerous. “I swear on all that’s holy, if you or any of your stupid idiot friends make her feel self-conscious about this, I will rain down terror.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Anya said dismissively, and Lexa could feel herself losing her sister to the call of the festivities. “Your big dick cred has already been well established. No need to go swinging it around.”

“I mean it, Anya. Just, I don’t know, distract everyone until I get there.”

Anya sighed. “I don’t know why you’re freaking out, but sure. I’ll go tell your girlfriend to quit telling everybody how good you are in bed. Which, by the way, is disgusting. I don’t need to know these things.”

The truth was, Lexa _was_ freaking out. Maybe Anya truly didn’t get it, though surely she had to know Alpha culture just as well as Lexa did. True, Anya hadn’t had the same experiences that Lexa had, constantly on the receiving end of catcalls and the rampant assumption that she must be pretty much down to fuck at anytime, anywhere just because she was an Omega. What Anya did have, though, was a lifetime full of being steeped in just what it meant to be an Alpha, where self-worth seemed to be measured in length and circumference and where if someone dared to be less than the Alpha-iest Alpha to ever Alpha, they were pretty much set up for a life of ridicule.

It wasn’t that she didn’t think Clarke couldn’t handle herself. She’d managed to make it through her entire life as an Alpha, after all, and aside from the rare, occasional asshole tendency, seemed to have survived relatively unscathed.  That Clarke could handle herself made it even worse. In their time together, Lexa had rarely seen Clarke fazed by anything they’d gotten up to in private, but she’d never forget the way Clarke had looked when she’d delicately broached the possibility that she might like it if Lexa fucked her. With a cock. Of her own.

She’d been shy and skittish and clearly afraid, and Lexa’s heart melted at the memory. Clarke had asked as if she’d been sure that the answer would be no, or possibly just scornful laughter, or even the back of Lexa’s head as she promptly extracted herself from Clarke’s life. When Lexa had instead agreed to give it a try without any recrimination or fuss, Clarke had looked at her like she was the most precious thing in the world.

If those motherfucking Alphas made Clarke ashamed of herself for wanting that, Lexa was going to flat out murder them even if she was in the middle of a doctorate in _Conflict Resolution_.

She had to park halfway across the parking lot from Raven and Clarke’s shared apartment, and had managed to work up a full head of steam by the time she barreled through the door. It was a relatively modest affair, mostly close friends, but she didn’t let go of any of her anxiety until her eyes found Clarke.

“Hey baby!” Clarke called, springing up from where she was slouched on the couch. “I mean, Lexa. I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to. You don’t like it. I know that.”

“It’s fine,” Lexa soothed, grabbing hold of Clarke’s outstretched hand to help her navigate her way through the bodies scattered haphazardly across the floor as if order of any kind was anathema.

“You’re here early,” Clarke said, instantly wrapping herself around Lexa as soon as she was within hugging range. She buried her face in Lexa’s neck and let her hands drop to Lexa’s ass and Lexa, still concerned about Clarke's mental wellbeing and self-esteem, let her. “Did you miss me?”

Lexa sighed when Clarke grinned up at her – half crooked and half lecherous.

“Are you okay?” she asked, searching Clarke’s face for any hint of trouble.

“Me? Yeah, I’m fine,” Clarke said, stretching up to give Lexa a lingering kiss. “I mean, Bell was being an ass earlier, but I told him to suck my dick, so, you know, typical Friday.”

“Was that your dick or your girlfriend’s dick?” Bellamy snickered, holding his fist out for a fist pound from his sister Octavia.

“Mine’s bigger but hers is better,” Clarke shot back before freezing and looking up at Lexa guiltily. “Shit. Sorry, Lex. I know you don’t like me talking about bedroom activities, but that jackass was trying to give me a hard time about the way I like it when you…”

Lexa slapped a hand over Clarke’s mouth. The fact that Clarke had said ‘bedroom activities’ instead of any of the many other ways she might normally have operationalized said activities was at least proof that she was trying. “I get the gist.”

“But I told him,” Clarke continued, once she’d pried Lexa’s hand away, “what you told me. I don’t have anything to be ashamed about. It’s who I am, and who gives a fuck what anyone else thinks. Did you hear that, Bell?” Clarke called over to him, smirking. “Fuck genera essentialism.”

Lexa had never considered that she might one day take great pride in the fact that Clarke felt comfortable talking openly about the way she liked to take Lexa’s cock, but her life hadn’t been exactly predictable since Clarke had shown up at her door. Still, she was pretty sure she’d done that – made Clarke feel good about a part of herself that she clearly hadn’t before – and it felt pretty damn amazing.

“And, I mean, it’s just sometimes. As if you could give up all this for too long,” Clarke continued, pointing down at her crotch proudly.

Lexa's sense of pride made way for annoyance because there it was – vestigial Alpha.

“Anyway,” Clarke said, her voice now more of a grumble, “no one said anything about it when I was with Finn. Why should it matter now that I’m with you?”

“It shouldn’t,” she grunted, reflexively pulling Clarke into another hug.

Lexa felt the same confusing stab of feelings that always accompanied the mention of Finn Collins. It was mostly anger and jealousy, only one of which was acceptable. After all, it made sense that she’d be angry at the Beta boy who had broken Clarke’s heart, who had cheated on her even as he claimed to love her, because Clarke was the kind of person who didn’t deserve that. Not that anyone deserved it, but still... The few times they’d talked about it, Clarke’s default had been to dismiss even the notion of emotions, to point out that they’d been going to different colleges and so it wasn’t like it was completely unexpected that their bond would have faded and that Finn would have wanted to experiment. _It was college_ , she’d say with a shrug and a sheen of tears she’d resolutely blink away, and Lexa would let her, because she didn’t feel the need to force Clarke to open up about her feelings of betrayal and abandonment when Clarke clearly wasn’t yet ready. That didn’t mean that there wasn’t at least a 70/30 chance she’d punch Finn Collins in the face if she ever met him, but Lexa knew what it was like to need to keep a tight rein on feelings that might significantly compromise her calm if brought into the light, so she didn’t push.

The jealousy, though… She _hated_ it. She hated that she felt it – that the thought of Clarke loving Finn Collins, of Clarke touching Finn Collins, of Clarke sharing herself with _Finn Collins_ the same way she shared herself with Lexa burned white-hot inside of her whenever she allowed herself to examine it too closely. She didn’t do jealousy, and she didn’t allow herself the kinds of relationships that might even begin to engender it. She wasn’t the kind of Omega who wrapped herself up in layers of possessiveness, demanding bites and wearing another’s scent like a badge of pride. She didn’t coo about _my Alpha_ , never planned to ever let those words cross her lips, but if Finn Collins ever showed up in her vicinity, she just might.

Which was ridiculous, altogether, because Clarke was a heat hook-up who Lexa had grudgingly accepted as a relatively steady presence in her life, but that was it. Mostly.

“Fancy words, Griffin,” Bellamy teased, unable to let it go. “Did your girlfriend teach them to you?”

Instead of growling and posturing, which Lexa half expected as the default of any Alpha provoked long enough, Clarke simply laughed. “Of course she did, jackass. I told you, she’s crazy smart.” Clarke wound an arm around Lexa’s waist and turned so they were both facing the gang of what Lexa mentally referred to as drunken delinquents, letting her hand slip into Lexa’s back pocket. It took an effort of will for Lexa to refrain from removing it, but she was still in the mindset of being supportive, so she let it slide. “And now she's going to take me home and fuck me with her big dick.”

“Clarke,” Lexa hissed, because even she could only support so much, “could you maybe stop bringing up the dick thing?”

“Yeah, sure baby.” Clarke smiled up at her sweetly if not a little drunkenly. “I’d much rather be taking your cock than talking about it anyway.”

Lexa thought she just might use said cock and gag Clarke with it if she mentioned it one more time in front of her immature, idiot friends.

\------

They’d picked it out together. Lexa had made supportive noises while internally fighting against a rising tide of what she had, at the time, been refusing to recognize as jealousy because Clarke kept steering them towards models that looked uncannily realistic. The niggling notion that Clarke was going to pick out something that reminded her of motherfucking Finn Collins (who Lexa was not jealous of at all) crept into her thoughts, until finally it crept out of her thoughts and into the space between them in an utterly unwelcome outburst of temper.

“Of course not,” Clarke had said, blinking in confusion at Lexa’s unexpectedly virulently worded claim that maybe what Clarke really wanted was a Finn Collins clone and if that was the case, maybe they should send him one of those life-cast home kits and then Clarke could get someone other than Lexa to fuck her with it.

And then they’d had to have a delicate conversation about Clarke’s history with Finn, with more details about their two and a half year relationship and nearly equally long sex life than Lexa had ever wanted to know. She wasn’t pining for Finn or anything like that, Clarke had reassured her. It’d just been something she’d done with him sometimes, letting him be the insertive partner instead of the other way around, and it was more about the way she’d discovered she liked it than it was about Finn. There’d been talk about what it meant to be an Alpha and be bi, and about whether or not that was linked to positioning or if it was just something Clarke liked to do sometimes, and the entire time that Clarke was engaging in an unexpectedly sensitive and open conversation with her, Lexa hadn’t been able to completely forget the fact that her laptop was open to a page with row upon row of thumbnails of commercially made cocks for sale.

“How about this one?” Clarke had asked later, when Lexa was tucked between her legs with her back pressed to Clarke’s front, keenly aware of the actually currently present hard cock pressed against the cleft of her ass. “I’ve never been with anyone who wasn’t cut before.”

Which was how Lexa had ended up with the impressive uncut cock she was currently settling into place in her harness.

Clarke was sitting on the edge of the bed, already naked, with her hand wrapped around her own cock, pumping slowly, and the other behind her to support her weight.

“Bell just wishes he was as lucky as I am,” she said, when Lexa turned to face her.

“Could we stop talking about Bellamy?” Lexa asked, fighting down a blush at the appreciative look in Clarke’s eyes.

The words reminded Lexa of the unvoiced threat she’d pondered at the party, of using her cock as a gag if Clarke couldn’t manage to stop talking about it. Which, she admitted to herself, was a lie. She didn’t have to be reminded of it, because she hadn’t stopped thinking about it since the image first sprang to mind. It was something they’d never done, something she didn’t even know if Clarke was willing to or interested in doing, but Lexa had to admit, if only to herself, that she wanted it. Badly.

“Clarke,” she began, but had to pause, because her voice was breathy and uncertain and if she was going to ask Clarke to suck her recently attached cock, she was going to do so with certainty.

“Yeah?” Clarke asked expectantly, running her thumb over her own cock even as she stared hungrily at Lexa’s.

“I want you to use your mouth.”

She hadn’t really managed to phrase it as a question, but Lexa was pleased with the delivery nonetheless.

Clarke’s hand froze and she swallowed hard, eyes wide, and for a moment, Lexa wondered if she had offended some deeply buried wellspring of Alpha pride.

“Only if you want to,” she amended, aware that her approach had been less than delicate.

“Uh, yeah,” Clarke said hoarsely, nodding rapidly. “I want to.”

Lexa pushed down the question burning in her throat – _had Clarke ever done this with that asshole Finn Collins_ – and instead stepped closer until her thighs were pressing against the inside of Clarke’s spread legs. “Is this okay?” she asked instead.

Clarke leaned forward and flicked the tip of her tongue over the head of Lexa’s cock, apparently satisfied that it was answer enough.

It was odd, Lexa thought with an odd sense of detachment, seeing things from this perspective. Clarke seemed to be an avid fan of the use of her tongue, pressing it flat against the base of Lexa’s cock and dragging it up along her length before taking the tip in her mouth. Lexa wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it hadn’t been for Clarke to go about things with an artfulness that would have made sense had Lexa actually been able to feel it but that, in the absence of such sensation, had to either be about Clarke’s own enjoyment in the act in and of itself or her desire to provide Lexa with ample visual stimulation. Or, Lexa allowed, groaning deeply, involuntarily, when Clarke looked up at her with those beautiful, big blue eyes and took Lexa’s cock in her mouth so deeply that it had to be nudging against the back of her throat, maybe it was both.

She found that she’d brought her hand to the back of Clarke’s head, applying only enough pressure to be able to follow along with Clarke’s movements. It was something she herself abhorred, though the truth was Clarke hadn’t had too many opportunities to earn her ire in that way. There were probably multiple reasons that Lexa hadn’t often found herself in the very position Clarke was currently inhabiting – the fact that Lexa’s longest relationship had been with another Omega girl, rendering such things essentially moot; the way popular culture had made it seem toxic to her with its oversaturation of images of the stereotypical Omega breathless and desperate on her or his knees for anything the smug Alpha standing over them was willing to give; the fact that Clarke must have noticed her lack of enthusiasm and so never even brought it up.

What Clarke was doing felt oddly like a gift, though, despite the way it was possible she was doing it as much for herself as for Lexa. Clarke’s fingers were digging hard into her ass and she was making muffled, moaning sounds of pleasure as she worked Lexa’s cock. Her own cock was leaking pre-cum, and Lexa couldn’t stop looking at her.

“Do you wish I’d do this for you?” she heard herself ask softly, running her fingers through Clarke’s hair.

When Clarke pulled free, her lips were swollen, red, and shiny with saliva, and Lexa felt herself clench. “You don’t like to,” Clarke said, smiling with incongruous sweetness even as she shook her head to affirm her acceptance of the way things were.

Lexa brought her hand down to cup Clarke’s chin, brushing her thumb over Clarke’s swollen lower lip. “I could,” she said, voice hitching as Clarke took the thumb in her mouth. She thought about what it might be like to look up and see Clarke looking down at her, not smugly but with the smile it seemed she saved for Lexa – pleased, but in a way that seemed to be more about an appreciation of the fact that Lexa was even there with her at all than it was about anything else.

Clarke let Lexa’s thumb go with a sharp pop. “But you don’t.”

“I just never realized it could be like this.”

“It can be even better.” Clarke grinned, and Lexa nearly yelped as she felt Clarke’s fingers drift between her legs, maneuvering through the confines of the straps and fabric that made up her harness until they were slipping inside her. She brought her lips back to Lexa’s cock, giving the tip a kiss before taking her in again, and Lexa took in a deep, shaky breath.

Clarke curled her fingers and began to thrust, and Lexa knew it wasn’t going to take long. Her hips jerked and Clarke made a noise of surprise as the cock slid even deeper in her mouth, and Lexa wanted to tell her she was sorry, that she hadn’t meant to do that, but she was having enough trouble simply remaining on her feet.

Later, as she was whimpering Clarke’s name and tumbling onto the bed so that they both went sprawling, and Clarke was laughing happily and Lexa was still fluttering against her fingers, she acknowledged that maybe she was in a little trouble, romantically speaking.

\------

Clarke’s initial request, all that time ago, had brought with it a new lexicon. Suddenly Lexa found herself saying things like _hold yourself open for me_ and _you like the way my cock feels in your ass don’t you_ , which she’d previously reserved for things that might be said in porn but certainly never in her real life and even more certainly never by her. She’d found herself in possession of new toys, too, beyond the obvious. Now, her bedside table held a box of condoms, black nitrile gloves, and a bottle of lube, and she found herself doing things with them that she’d never anticipated doing. Like, for example, rolling a condom onto her cock and coating it with lube, then pressing it against the cleft of Clarke’s ass and holding it in place with a thumb across it as she thrust. But, it made Clarke shiver, and there was something hypnotic about seeing the shaft of her cock slipping between the lush curves of Clarke’s ass, and so now it was a thing she did.

Then, too, there was the way she coated her fingers with lube and worked them into Clarke, starting with one before adding another, and watching as Clarke opened up for her. Watching, too, the way Clarke would look back at her over her shoulder, sometimes losing the battle to stay on hands and knees and falling to her elbows. It usually meant that Lexa found herself stripping away the glove and squirting lube into her palm and coating her cock with it because she needed to be inside Clarke, couldn’t wait another moment, and fuck, but she loved the way Clarke opened up to take her. She’d end up saying something to reinforce the point, something about just how good Clarke looked taking her cock.

Or something like, “Oh fuck, baby, that’s it. Take it. Take my cock. I’m going to fuck you so good.”

Which also belonged in porn and not real life, but was still something she’d just said, so…

When she was fucking Clarke like this, she could maybe appreciate all of the posturing Alphas did, because it did feel amazing, listening to the way Clarke keened in response to her and the way she looked, on her knees with her face pressed into the mattress, opening up to take Lexa all the way to the hilt. No, she corrected herself, she couldn’t appreciate it, but she could understand it, because underneath it all, it _was_ deeply satisfying. Her hands were on Clarke’s hips and the rhythmic slap accompanying her thrusts was loud and raw, and from the way Clarke’s shoulder was moving, Lexa knew she was stroking herself. And she was doing that, was causing all of that, because of the way she made Clarke feel.

“Wait,” Lexa said, panting, pressed into Clarke as deeply as she could go. She took a moment to steady herself before pulling out to a whimper from Clarke. “On your back.”

She shifted as Clarke moved, easing her knees beneath Clarke’s hips so that Clarke’s lower body was canted up for her, before sliding inside of her again. She couldn’t thrust as deeply in the position, but she could wrap her hand around Clarke’s cock, stroking in a rhythm roughly in keeping with the way she was rocking into Clarke. Clarke’s face was flushed, the hair at her hairline wet with sweat. Her breasts moved with Lexa’s movements, a slight bounce every time she thrust into Clarke, and Lexa contemplated the possibility that she might come again just from the sight.

Clarke’s cock was hot against her palm, the shaft slick with a near continuous stream of pre-cum. “Come for me, Clarke,” she said, voice hoarse. “I want to see you come for me.”

She didn’t have to provide further instruction, because Clarke’s hips were bucking against her own and cum was landing in thick, heavy stripes across Clarke’s own breasts and belly, and Lexa fucking loved it.

“Fuck, Clarke,” she muttered, leaning forward to smear the cum on Clarke’s chest against a nipple before taking it in her mouth. The move trapped Clarke’s cock between them and she felt a faint twitch and then the hot splash of cum against her own belly, but she didn’t care. Clarke’s fingers were in her hair, Clarke’s nipple was in her mouth, her tongue was covered in Clarke’s cum, and life was fucking fantastic.

\------

“We need a shower.”

Lexa agreed. At some point, she’d wound up straddling Clarke’s hips, still buried inside her, with their chests pressed together as they kissed lazily. It meant they were both an absolute mess, but despite what she’d assumed would be a distaste for being covered in cum, Lexa found she didn’t want to move. In fact, she could feel Clarke growing hard against her belly, and wondered what it might feel like to simply rut against her. She wondered if Clarke would be able to come from the pressure of Lexa against her cock, with Lexa’s own cock still deep inside her, and rolled her hips experimentally as a test.

“Fuck,” Clarke hissed, eyelids fluttering closed. “Baby, no. It feels so good, but if you do, I won’t be able to sit right for days.

Much to her horror, Lexa heard herself murmur, “I can be gentle.”

Lexa was about to apologize, to take it back and pull free, when Clarke dug her fingers into her ass and rocked against her.

“ _Fuck_. Okay,” Clarke said, her face screwed up in pleasure. “Just, use the lube.”

“Are you sure?”

“ _Please_.”

“Clarke…”

Clarke’s eyes locked with her, nearly black with desire. “Fuck me, Lexa,” she said.

Lexa felt the words down to her toes.

She moved carefully, rearranging them so that she was between Clarke’s legs. She pulled out until only the head of her cock was still inside Clarke and applied lube liberally, a stream of it running over her shaft and down onto the bedding below. When she pushed back inside, Clarke made a noise of such absolute pleasure that Lexa had to take a moment to compose herself. True to her word, she moved slowly and gently, supporting herself on both hands so that she could lean over and kiss her way across Clarke’s neck. She needed the connection, and thrilled to the way she could feel Clarke’s knuckles brushing against her belly as Clarke stroked herself. For a moment, she lost herself in fantasy, thinking about what it might be like if she was an Alpha and Clarke was her Omega, about how she’d stretch Clarke open with her knot and fill her with cum and bite down on her neck and mark and claim her and…

She had to shake her head to clear away the thoughts, face burning with embarrassment at them.

“Lexa, can you just…” Clarke said, pausing midway to bite down hard on her lower lip. “Can you just fill me up and let me…”

Lexa did, burying herself deep inside Clarke and kissing her as Clarke’s hand worked against her cock until she came between them. After, Lexa slowly eased free of her, unable to tear her eyes away from the way Clarke was still open for her and unwilling to admit to the way the sight filled her with something primal and possessive.

“Now we definitely need a shower,” Clarke slurred, voice heavy with contentment.

Lexa surprised herself by leaning over and taking Clarke’s softening cock in her mouth and licking it clean.

“Holy shit,” Clarke said, unable to help the way her hips bucked up and her cock gave forth a small spurt of cum at the feel of Lexa’s mouth hot around her. A moment later, Lexa pulled away with a pop, licking her lips, and looked at Clarke unapologetically and shrugged, unable to explain it herself.

\------

Half an hour later, Lexa found herself pressed up against the tile of the shower as the water turned lukewarm around them. Clarke moved behind her, filling her and nipping at the nape of her neck, and Lexa let her forehead rest against the shower wall.

“I love that you do that for me. Fuck me like that,” Clarke was whispering, as one hand cupped Lexa’s breast and the other worked between her legs, circling her clit. And then Clarke’s teeth dug into the back of her neck, not hard enough to claim but hard enough to bruise, and Lexa’s cry of pleasure echoed around them.

She felt bereft when Clarke pulled out as her orgasm tripped toward finality, leaving her empty and aching for more. She felt confused when she heard Clarke moan behind her and felt the hot splash of cum against her ass, and looked over her shoulder, eyes narrowed.

“I’m sorry,” Clarke was saying, her hand scrambling for the soap. “I’ll wash it off.”

“But why?” Lexa asked, spinning before Clarke was able to follow-up on her words.

It took Clarke a moment to understand what she was being asked, a moment Lexa spent feeling something inside her ratchet up until she was afraid it’d break free.

“Oh, I… I thought you wouldn’t want… I mean, we just finished washing off. I thought you wouldn’t want to have to deal with me, you know, coming inside you.”

Even though Clarke was looking up at her shyly and even though her reasoning made sense, Lexa felt oddly furious. “Don’t do that again,” she said, pressing a hard kiss against Clarke’s lips. “Unless I tell you otherwise, when you’re inside me, I want you to come inside me. Is that clear?”

“I’m sorry,” Clarke said, eyes a little wild in her uncertainty.

“I like it,” Lexa admitted, voice hard as if it was an accusation, and she blushed so hard the tips of her ears were red. Her hand found Clarke’s half-hard cock and cupped it. “This is mine, and I just… I like it, okay.”

The unsure expression on Clarke’s face fell away, evolving into a pleased smirk. “Oh yeah?” she said, suddenly so cocky that Lexa would have doubted that she’d been stammering and shy only a moment before if she hadn’t seen it for herself.

“Ugh. Don’t be like that.”

“Like what?”

Lexa rolled her eyes. “All big, bad Alpha swaggering around because you have an Omega who likes it when you come inside her.”

“Do I?” Clarke asked, oddly serious.

Lexa reached over to shut off the now distinctly chilly water, already reaching for the towel. “Do you what?”

“Have an Omega?” Out of the corner of her eye, Lexa saw Clarke pause and swallow hard. “Because you have me, if you want me.”

She froze. It was a lot easier to tell herself that Clarke was just a hook-up, that she was just the girl Lexa was with because she was convenient and fun and made Lexa laugh, when Clarke wasn’t looking at her with a mix of hope and fear.

“I can’t promise you forever, Clarke,” she said, pushing a lock of wet hair behind Clarke’s ear and stepping closer, forcing Clarke’s eyes to meet hers. She tried to ignore the way Clarke’s eyes softened, as if they were seeing something in her own that Lexa hadn’t meant to be there. “Not yet.”

Clarke nodded faintly and grinned. “But right now?”

Lexa made a noise of assent before closing the distance between them and kissing Clarke softly.

“I’ll take right now,” Clarke said when they pulled apart, smiling crookedly as she took the towel and wrapped it around Lexa. “I can work with that.”

And then she drew Lexa into her arms again, rubbing her face against Lexa’s neck with purpose before admitting huskily, “I like it when you smell like me.”

Lexa didn’t admit it, would never admit it, but she liked it too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're thinking that there was a third chapter to this fic at some point, you were right. I decided I wasn't happy with it - it didn't convey what I meant for it to convey - and so I'm going to rework it.
> 
> If you left me a comment about the chapter while it was up, thank you. Apparently, they get deleted when a chapter gets deleted.


	3. And they say romance is dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa overthinks things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you thought you'd already read a chapter 3, chances are you did. I wasn't happy with it, so I took it down and reconfigured it. I think this is a better fit with the story's overall tone, and is hopefully much less problematic. It keeps various components of the previous version of this chapter, but reorders and repurposes them along with a fair amount of new stuff.

“So do you maybe want to tell me why you look like that?” Anya asked, sweeping her arm up in Lexa’s general direction in a way Lexa felt was frankly overly dramatic. “With the moping and the tee shirt that I’m pretty sure is Clarke’s even though you’re apparently not talking to her?”

Lexa just shrugged.

“I can do basic math, Lexa. Even Clarke can do basic math, which I realize might come as a shock to you.”

It was the kind of thing Anya said because she knew it would get a rise out of her, but just because it worked and Lexa did feel her need to defend rise to the fore, didn’t mean she had to fall into the trap completely.

When she remained silent, Anya sighed. “Whatever all this drama is, either fix it or keep it in your room. I just want to watch some television without you sucking all that makes life worth living into your black hole of pathetic wallowing.”

“Go to Raven’s then.”

“Why? So I can watch Clarke grow even more freaked out every time you ignore one of her texts? So I can listen to her ask Raven what she did wrong for the five hundredth time? You’ve managed to extend your pit of despair across two households, baby sister.”

Anya was scowling at her. Then again, she’d been told the first thing a 3 year old Anya had done when introduced to her newly adopted infant sister was to scowl at her, making it something Lexa had been subjected to literally her entire life.

“You have a job, right? Go there.”

Anya remained unmoved. “Lincoln needed me to switch with him so I’m taking the evening shift. I don’t have to be there until 1:00.”

It was barely 10:00.

“If you’re not going to confine your miserableness to places I’m not currently occupying, then at least tell me why you’ve decided to cut off all contact with your girlfriend the week before your heat. That is what you’re calling her now, right? I think I heard you say it like maybe three times to Clarke’s three hundred.” When Lexa remained silent, Anya sighed again, even more dramatically than before. “It is because you’re going to have your heat soon, right? If so, I’m even more confused. Isn’t that your whole thing, you and Clarke? You know, the romantic story you’ll tell your grandkids about how Grandma Clarke managed to get in Grandma Lexa’s pants about five minutes after they met and how they spent the next three days fucking. Hopefully not on any shared spaces.”

Lexa looked at her blankly. “Like that couch you’re sitting on?”

“Damnit, Lexa.” Anya wiped her hands on her pants. “Seriously, though. What’s your deal? Yesterday, Raven and Clarke were watching a re-run of Shark Tank and halfway through Clarke just started crying silently and didn’t stop. I asked her if you’d broken up, because you’re sure as hell not a fount of information, and she just shrugged and said she didn’t think so. Yet.”

Maybe it was that she actually did want to talk to someone about it, or maybe it was that Anya had worn her down, but Lexa blurted, “I told her I didn’t want us to spend my heat together.”

Anya was looking at her as if the thought was incomprehensible, as if the notion that Lexa could do something like that was beyond her understanding in some fundamental way. “You did what?”

Lexa took the question as rhetorical and didn’t bother saying it again.

“Then who are you going to spend it with?” Anya asked, clearly puzzled.

“No one.”

It was almost humorous to see Anya caught so off-guard, or would have been if Lexa hadn’t been drowning in her own misery.

“Is this one of those times when you get stupid and stubborn and try to prove something to yourself?”

Lexa again made use of a shrug to both confirm and not confirm.

“You’re ridiculous, you know that? You’re miserable. She’s miserable. You’re both going to be even more miserable when your heat hits and you have no one to help, and all she’s able to think about is that she wants to be with you but _you don’t want her_.”

“That’s not true,” Lexa snapped reflexively, something burning low in her gut at the insinuation. “That’s not why.”

“Because there’s some other natural conclusion.”

Lexa remained stonily silent.

“Part of me is glad that Raven is a Beta,” Anya muttered, shaking her head at Lexa. “I don’t have to worry about all this bullshit anymore. Having a partner in heat is overwhelming. You spend half your time stupid with lust, not able to think about anything other than your knot and where you want to put it, and the other half desperate to give her whatever she needs because all you want is for your Omega to be happy. Not that I don’t want Raven to be happy, but I don’t feel like I’m a worthless sack of shit if I don’t satisfy every small whim, you know? And I admit I don’t have much experience with Omegas, but that’s what it’s like. You want to soothe them, protect them, fuck them, cater to them. It’s exhausting.”

Lexa watched Anya guardedly.

“But at the same time, the thought of not doing that for them? I don’t know. Maybe I underestimated you. Maybe you’re actively trying to break this girl’s heart.” Anya rolled her eyes. “It’s not like I enjoy talking to you about this kind of shit, so whatever, you know. If you want to fuck this up, go ahead. I didn’t expect you to keep her around for this long anyway, but you did so I thought maybe you liked her.”

Anya changed the channel on the tv, clearly finished with the conversation, and Lexa sat through a re-run of American Ninja Warrior, lost in her own thoughts, before she spoke again.

“How do I fix it?”

Anya didn’t even bother to look over at her. “Shit, I don’t know. Call her back. Take her flowers. Apologize. When I fuck up, I generally find if I start with saying that I’m sorry I fucked up, it helps.”

“Flowers?” Lexa scoffed.

“Yeah, flowers. Girls love that kind of thing.”

“You’re a girl. Do you like flowers?”

Anya seemed to consider it. “I don’t know. No one’s ever brought me flowers. I might like them, if I liked the person giving them to me.” She grunted contemplatively. “I mean, I would probably prefer an apology blowjob, but that’s just me. Maybe Clarke would be okay with flowers.”

“You’re shit at giving advice.”

“I think you mean I’m _the_ shit,” Anya said, finally turning to her. “And you’re welcome.

“For what?"

“For saving you from your own stupidity, probably.” Anya shrugged. “I mean, there’s only so much I can do. The rest is up to you.”

\------

That the rest _was_ up to her terrified Lexa.

Step one: A text.

_‘Can I come over?’_

Step two: Convincing Anya to lure Raven out of the apartment. She needed the privacy to say whatever it was she was going to say.

(And if Clarke kicked her out, she’d rather there be no witnesses. She had her pride.)

Step three: Figuring out what she could say to make it right.

Lexa felt a disconcerting sense of déjà vu. Then again, this time she was the one standing at Clarke’s door, and Clarke’s sweatpants were hiked up to mid-calf and she was wearing a tee shirt that was so old and ragged that it was pockmarked with holes. Her hair was in a ponytail and her expression was guarded, so there were differences. Very important, potentially quite consequential differences, Lexa allowed.

“Lexa,” Clarke said, expression guarded as she stepped into the scant space left by her barely open door.

Lexa had thought about what she was going to say while she’d showered, while she’d dried her hair and picked out her clothes, and while she’d sat at the red light two blocks away from Clarke’s apartment. She’d crafted apologies and explanations and pleas for forgiveness for what must have seemed, to Clarke, to be an abrupt and senseless cruelty.

“I’m sorry,” she said, holding out a bouquet of lilies. “I fucked up.”

It earned her a quizzical look but a few more inches of opened door – and Clarke did take the flowers from her – so maybe Anya’s advice wasn’t entirely without merit.

“I was scared,” she continued, because she needed to say it before she lost her courage. “It’s been a long time since I cared about anyone the way I care about you, and I didn’t expect it and I wasn’t ready for it and I kept fighting it because I was scared and I was stupid. I thought I didn’t want you there for my heat because I didn’t want to need you like that, but I do, Clarke, and it frightens me. I always told myself I wasn’t going to be with an Alpha because I didn’t want that, I didn’t want all the things that come along with it, but you’re… you’re you, Clarke. You’re special.”

After a long moment of contemplation, the door opened further. Clarke took a step back in a clear invitation to enter, and Lexa didn’t hesitate.

“I’m going to put these in water,” she said, leaving Lexa to her own devices. After far more thought than it probably merited, Lexa decided to settle on the couch since it at least conveyed the impression that she hoped Clarke would deign to join her. She was perched there, on the edge and with her hands clasped tightly against her knees, when Clarke edged back into the room only far enough to lean against the frame of the door leading to the kitchen. There was a furrow between her eyebrows, tension in her shoulders, and a hesitant look on her face, and Lexa had to force herself to stay where she was because all she wanted to do was wrap Clarke up in her arms.

She’d done that. She’d hurt Clarke, who cooked her favorite meal when Lexa was stressed out about planning the seminar she was scheduled to teach fall semester, and who found every relevant documentary on Netflix and watched them with her when Lexa mentioned she was thinking of adding something like that to the syllabus. Clarke, who always defended her against Anya’s gentle teasing, even when she didn’t need it, and who was complimentary in a way without artifice, as if it was a natural thing to both find Lexa worthy of praise and to give it without expecting anything in return.

Clarke, who had cried on her father’s birthday because the pain of losing him was still fresh even after the passage of years, and let Lexa hold her and press kisses into her hair. Who laughed off the ways in which Lexa could be sharp because somehow she found it charming instead of objectionable. Who looked at her as if she was something important, something Clarke needed in her life for it to be whole. Well, who _had_.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “Clarke, please, just sit with me?”

It took a moment, but Clarke acquiesced, pulling herself from the door frame with obvious hesitancy. She slid onto the far side of the couch but she turned so she was facing Lexa, and Lexa closed the distance between them immediately because she couldn’t have this conversation from what felt like opposite poles.

“I’m… complicated. I realize that,” she said, wishing that Clarke would meet her eyes. She wasn’t quite sure how to start the unravelling of her many threads, but she figured it began with a few mea culpas. “I have complicated relationships with people, mostly because I’m the one complicating them, and I have a complicated relationship with what I am. I’ve spent most of my life hating the fact that I’m an Omega because it means something. It means that people make assumptions about me, and I don’t like those assumptions. I means that I have to accept the fact that some of those assumptions are true, and I don’t like that either.”

Clarke’s eyes flicked up to hers, still gun shy but with a willingness to listen.

“It’s not easy for me to talk about these things,” she said, hand inching across the space between them without Lexa’s conscious permission, because she needed the contact. “It’s… it’s stupid Omega bullshit.”

“Okay,” Clarke said, and Lexa didn’t know if it was an acknowledgement of the confession or an encouragement to continue, but Clarke hadn’t shied away from the place where Lexa’s fingers were brushing up against her knee.

She forced herself to keep going. “It’s pride, because I don’t want those people to be right, the ones that think that just because I’m an Omega it must mean I’m some weak, submissive, docile little thing who just needs to find herself an Alpha with a nice, big cock so I can spend the rest of my life bouncing back and forth between spreading my legs and popping out babies. I’m not like that. I’m not.”

Clarke moved suddenly, her hand finding Lexa’s and twining their fingers together. “I know,” she said, looking at Lexa with such earnestness that it was almost painful. “I know you’re not.”

Lexa’s fingers tightened against Clarke’s involuntarily. She took in a deep breath and sucked in her lips, because she’d like to think this was enough to secure their reconciliation, but she’d be selling Clarke short. Herself too, maybe. “It’s going to be different this time, you know?” she said, feeling a hint of blush settle along her cheekbones. She knew Clarke had to know, that she’d heard the same stories Lexa had, or maybe even experienced it for herself. Her body was going to know the difference between an unpaired heat and a heat when _her Alpha_ was available to her, and it was going to take what was normally an unreasonable and highly inconvenient annoyance that kept her sequestered for half of a week and expand it into something no less than a compulsion. She wouldn’t be able to deny it, wouldn’t be able to deny Clarke anything, and the thought of herself so desperate and needy froze something inside of her. The knowledge that some part of her wanted it, even now when her mind was unclouded and even knowing all of that, was even worse.

Or maybe it was the understanding in Clarke’s eyes that was worst of all.

“You know how I trust you to give me what I need sometimes?” Clarke said, her voice a low and gentle rasp.

Lexa nodded.

Clarke’s eyes were focused and unwavering and far too insightful for Lexa’s comfort. “You can trust me too.”

It stung.

“I do trust you, Clarke,” she said, desperation coating the words because she needed Clarke to believe them. And then, with startling clarity, understanding washed over her, because it was the truth. She _meant_ it. She almost laughed at herself, because it made no sense that she’d have an epiphany; she’d never been one to come to sudden realizations. Her realizations had always been a long time coming, and borne of countless hours of introspection and internal struggle. Looking into Clarke’s eyes and seeing unhesitating acceptance, though, had words spilling out of her mouth, leaving behind the taste of certainty. “I trust you to let me have those things when I need them and not judge me for it. I trust you to give them to me and not think it changes anything about _us_. I wasn’t ready to admit it to myself. I wasn’t ready to admit it to you, but it’s true, Clarke.”

Her heart was racing and her muscles felt tense with the need to flee the disconcerting lightness suffusing her at the realization that all of those things were a new and vaguely terrifying constant in her life, but all of that fell away when Lexa saw Clarke’s lips stretch into a small smile. “You thought I wouldn’t understand that? Me?”

Lexa ducked her head, momentarily overcome. “It’s not just that. It’s the whole thing. It’s… I didn’t expect you, Clarke, but here you are.”

Clarke chuckled, light and happy, and Lexa wondered if it could be that easy. “Here I am,” she echoed, brow smoothing out.

In an unconscious sort of way, Lexa had spent time cataloguing Clarke’s strengths. There was kindness, of an intensity Lexa hadn’t expected, but also an underlying current of steel. There were some Alphas – and Clarke’s friend Bellamy sprang to mind – who were full of swagger and aggression and belligerence, seemingly committed to taking up every inch of space in a room. They overwhelmed, so much so that it had taken time for Lexa to realize that when it was time for decisions to be made, it was usually Clarke who her friends followed. Even Bellamy, with all of his bluster, would fall into line. There was no posturing from her and no displays of dominance, and honestly most of the decisions revolved around where to go for dinner or who was in charge of making the next beer run, but Lexa had noticed. It was a quiet strength, a resoluteness. It was a sense that Clarke could bear the weight of responsibility. That she could be trusted.

Lexa wondered what she’d done to any trust that had been between them because yeah, the first thing she’d said had been the truest – holy shit, but she’d fucked up. She’d handled things in maybe the worst way possible. So badly, in fact, that _Anya_ had taken it upon herself to point it out. _Anya_. “I know it will take time, but do you think you can forgive me?”

Clarke gave her a crooked smile; a single tear escaped to race down her cheek, finally losing the battle against uncharacteristic stoicism. “I’m not going to lie. It hurt. I thought things were good between us and I thought you thought that too. And then you told me you didn’t want to share your heat with me and you stopped returning my calls and texts and…” She laughed, and this time, it was tinged with bitterness. “It hurt. It made me wonder if I was just imagining what I thought we had, if you could just walk away like that.”

Even though she ached to reach out and wipe that tear away, Lexa remained still.

“Sometimes, you have to take chances, Lexa,” she said, giving Lexa’s fingers a soft squeeze. “I know it’s hard for you, but can’t stay in your head. Relationships aren’t logical. They’re messy, and sometimes you have to accept being uncomfortable and uncertain to make them work. That’s if you want to make them work.”

“I do,” Lexa said breathlessly, pushing past the natural instinct that told her to keep her emotions close to the vest so they couldn’t be used against her. “I want this to work, Clarke.”

Clarke’s expression was tinged with an unjustifiably fond exasperation. “Then maybe next time, you can just talk to me.”

Lexa nodded. “Or maybe I could start now.” Clarke continued to watch her, which seemed to be all of the go-ahead she was going to get. “I’ll be on my heat next week, Clarke. I want you there with me.”

Clarke blinked rapidly, eyes wet even as she smiled. “I’d like that.”

“And when I’m on my heat,” Lexa continued, desperate to get the words out before her nerve failed her, “I’m pretty sure I’m going to want you to show me that you’re my Alpha.”

Slowly, watching Clarke’s face at every movement, Lexa brought herself up onto her knees. She inched closer to Clarke, ready to back down at the first indication that her touch wasn’t wanted. Instead, Clarke shifted toward her, and with more fluidity than Lexa might have expected, brought her legs up onto the couch and between Lexa’s spread knees. Her hands found Lexa’s hips, urging her forward, until Lexa was straddling her lap, and looked up at Lexa in a way that was suddenly unreadable but definitely curious.

“Okay,” she said.

“You will not mate me,” Lexa said, eyes heavily lidded as she looked down at Clarke, given the benefit of height as she pushed up onto her knees. “Not even if I beg.”

Clarke nodded her head in understanding, eyes fixated on Lexa’s lips.

“You won’t hold back.”

“Lexa,” Clarke moaned, stretching up to brush a kiss against her lips.

Lexa pushed her away, hand firm against Clarke’s chest. “You’ll show me what it’s like for an Alpha to fuck her Omega when she’s on her heat. Do you think you can do that?”

Clarke’s hips bucked up at the words. She looked up at Lexa, pupils blown wide, and Lexa allowed herself a smile. Her hand slid down, pausing at the waistband of Clarke’s sweatpants, fingertips brushing against soft skin. “May I?”

It took a moment for Clarke’s mind to catch up with the quick segue, but when it did, she nodded. Lexa slid her hand down, finding Clarke already growing hard for her.

“You’ll keep your cock out of my mouth because when I try that again, I want it to be when I’m in control.”

“When?” Clarke asked, suddenly breathless.

Lexa leaned down to nip at the curve of Clarke’s ear, grinning with pleasure at Clarke’s answering whimper. She felt light inside, with Clarke in her arms and the awkwardness and uncertainty that had been between negated, at least for the moment, suffused with a desperate need to reconnect. “Yes, _when_. You’re the first Alpha I’ve ever been with, you know,” she said, pleased at the way Clarke shivered against her at the words. “When you showed up at my door that first time, I told myself it would be okay to slip, just that one time, but that that would be it.”

“Lexa,” Clarke said, unable to keep her hips still as Lexa stroked her to hardness, “You, uh... I mean…” Her words faltered as Lexa’s hand tightened around her teasingly.

“Uh-huh.” Lexa hummed, amused at Clarke’s sudden inability to string together even a single sentence. “You know what that means, don’t you? Nobody else has ever knotted me. Nobody else has ever come inside me. Just you, Clarke. Nobody else. Only you.”

It took Clarke a moment to parse through what Lexa was saying, but when she did, she practically melted against her. “Lexa,” she groaned, and Lexa grinned as she felt Clarke jerk forward erratically in her hand. A moment later, she felt something hot and wet against her fist even as Clarke’s fingers dug into her back and she faltered, surprised.

“Clarke, did you just come?”

Clarke slumped forward against her, head resting against the curve of Lexa’s breast. “I’m sorry,” she said, clearly trying to regain both her breath and her composure. “I’m so sorry. It’s just, I didn’t even know how much I wanted that to be true until you said it. And I swear I’m not being…” She paused, sighed.

Unable to help herself, Lexa laugh warmly.

“Fantastic,” Clarke murmured. “That’s all I needed, to come in my pants after, like, a minute-long handjob.” She shook her head. “That’s not embarrassing at all.”

Lexa pulled her hand free, not even aware that she was idly licking Clarke’s cum from her fingers until Clarke pulled her head away and immediately focused in on the motion, swallowing hard.

“I’m flattered,” Lexa murmured, settling down firmly against Clarke’s hips and looping her arms around her neck.

Clarke blushed even as she smiled and rolled her eyes at Lexa, settling her arms around Lexa’s waist. “That’s never happened to me. I just… How did I not know that?”

Lexa shrugged, well aware she wasn’t always the best at sharing but not wanting to tarnish her shining moment.

“I would have been…” Clarke’s expression changed to one of concern, eyes wide. “I would have been so much better that first time. Lexa, I would have taken care of you. I would have made it good for you.”

“I don’t remember being disappointed. Besides, I did keep you around, didn’t I?” Lexa said, a hint of shyness creeping in to suffuse her cheeks with a blush. “You must have done something right.”

Looking at the way Clarke was looking back at her, so open and happy, made something inside of Lexa twist painfully. “Clarke,” she began, voice suddenly cautious, “we’re okay, right? I didn’t ruin things?”

Clarke shrugged, eyes flicking off to the side as her smile faded. “I spent the last few days miserable without you. I don’t want to spend any more like that. My life is better when you’re in it, and I think you mean it, when you say you’re sorry.”

Lexa leaned forward to nuzzle against Clarke’s neck. “I do. I’m so sorry I hurt you,” she whispered, infusing as much regret as she could into the words.

Clarke relaxed against her, one hand sliding up Lexa’s back beneath the hem of her shirt. “I know,” she said softly. Then, with a trace of humor, “Are you trying to scent mark me?”

“I’m not trying,” Lexa said, voice muffled against Clarke’s skin. “I’m succeeding.”

She could almost feel Clarke’s confused grin. “There’s no one else here. Exactly who are you trying to convince that I’m yours?”

Lexa shifted up so that she was looking in Clarke’s eyes and brought her hand up to cup Clarke’s cheek. “You,” she said, and kissed her.

\------

Later, after Clarke had changed out of her stained sweatpants, she pulled Lexa into her room, settling behind her on the bed, wrapping an arm around her waist, and nuzzling in close.

“Lexa,” she began tentatively, her name coming so long after they’d settled in that it startled Lexa from the first fingers of sleep.

She shifted against Clarke lazily, exhausted by the strain of a day filled with unrelenting emotions. “Hmm?”

“You know that beginning of term party your graduate advisor is hosting? The one you’ve mentioned about fifteen times?”

Lexa nodded, not quite sure why it was on Clarke’s mind.

There was a soft sigh behind her, the slight tightening of Clarke’s arm around her waist, then, “Why haven’t you invited me to go with you?”

_Oh._

Suddenly wide awake, Lexa turned so that she was facing Clarke, who wouldn’t quite meet her eyes. She’d done this too. Made Clarke feel like she was what? Ashamed of her?

“You’re right,” she said, bringing her hand up to Clarke’s face and tracing her thumb along the curve of her jaw. “You deserve better than that.” She closed the gap between them, brushing her lips against Clarke’s. “Do you want to go? I can’t promise it will be a lot of fun.”

Clarke brought her head down to rest against Lexa’s shoulder. “I’m being…” she huffed, and Lexa felt her shake her head.

With a quick, sharp movement, Lexa drew Clarke’s leg over her hip and rolled onto her back, bringing Clarke with her so that she was straddling Lexa’s hips. “Everyone’s going to be so jealous,” she teased gently, running her hand along Clarke’s back, needing Clarke to smile again. “Have you seen how hot you are?”

It earned her a startled chuckle, warming something inside of her.

“Not to mention all this,” she added, rolling her hips up and nearly sending Clarke teetering even as she pointed down at Clarke’s crotch.

The chuckle exploded into full-blown laughter; it reminded Lexa of how much she preferred it when Clarke was confident and happy and _comfortable_ with her, and how much easier it was to have that when she was less of an asshole than usual.

“Since when are you funny?” Clarke asked, putting a hand on Lexa’s chest for balance, expression inordinately fond. It made Lexa’s chest ache to see it.

Lexa looked up at her solemnly. “I have always been funny, Clarke.”

And not that her pride was wounded when Clarke rolled her eyes and collapsed down onto Lexa, still laughing softly. Not really, because she had always been funny. Somewhere along the way, she’d just forgotten.

\------

By the time Lexa opened her door to Clarke’s impatient knocking, she was getting used to scenes in doorways. She half expected Clarke to be nervously playing with her hoodie’s zipper and rambling on about emergency fuckings, but instead Clarke was wincing slightly and smiling apologetically. And this time, Lexa wasn’t in the first stages of heat in a way that could be ignored and grumped about, at least temporarily. No, she was smack in the middle of it, and it was already stronger than it had been in years, and Clarke was _late_.

“I’m so sorry,” Clarke said, already kicking off her shoes and pulling her tee shirt over her head as she crossed the threshold, door still open behind her. “That final was a killer. Almost nobody left before time was up.”

She paused with her hands on the button of her jeans as Lexa slammed the door behind her, head snapping up and eyes going dark. “Fuck, Lexa,” she moaned, taking in a deep, involuntary breath. Lexa knew what she must be smelling, a mélange of _please_ _fuck me_ and _please knot me_ and _please make me yours_ no longer dispersed by the outside air that instantly had Clarke hardening. “Have you not doing been anything to get through this?”

Lexa wanted to growl that she had been, that she’d been locked away in her room all morning with her hands between her legs or a toy between her legs, but her fingers weren’t Clarke’s cock. Her dildo wasn’t Clarke’s cock. Nothing was Clarke’s cock, and she’d had to take the battery out of her phone to keep herself from begging Clarke to come over, half sure that Clarke would have walked out of her Biochem II final if she had, and fuck a semester of hard work and her surprisingly impressive GPA.

“I’ve been so…” Soft denim was molding itself around the outline of Clarke’s cock, and Lexa couldn’t look away. She didn’t know how to describe the way she’d been since she’d awoken with the first stirrings of her heat curling through her belly. No, she knew exactly how to describe it – needy and frustratingly submissive, with a mounting desire to beg Clarke to use her and breed her and fuck her until she was owned, but Lexa couldn’t bring herself to admit any of that out loud.

She felt dangerously reckless, a pulsing urge to pursue satiation and fuck the consequences washing away any attempts to think rationally. With a whimper, she reached out, a hand hooking in the waistband of Clarke’s jeans and pulling her forward, hard, and suddenly Clarke was in her arms, mouth pressed to her neck and teeth scraping against her skin.

“Let me help you,” Clarke said, hands slipping under Lexa’s shirt to press against bare skin.

Lexa pulled back long enough to make sure Clarke’s eyes were on hers. “You want to help me through this?” she asked, her hand between them, purposefully stroking along the ridge of Clarke’s cock through the denim of her jeans. “Do your job.”

Clarke’s lips curled into a savage grin and Lexa felt her knees go weak. “And what job might that be?”

“If you can’t figure that out, maybe I’d be better off seeing if Anya can procure me a more imaginative Alpha this time.”

Even though they both knew it was a meaningless taunt, it nonetheless served its purpose. The scent of Clarke’s rut crashed to the fore to mingle with that of Lexa’s heat, and Lexa took an unconscious step forward, entranced.

For a long moment, Clarke seemed too furious to speak, eyes narrowed and nostrils flared, and Lexa felt anticipation build inside her, rising to meet the impending challenge.

“Or perhaps…”

“Enough,” Clarke snapped, wrapping her hand firmly around Lexa’s wrist and using her grip to tug her down the hallway to the bedroom. “I’ll show you you’re mine, if that’s what you need.”

In Lexa’s head, she vociferously agreed that that was exactly what she fucking needed. What she’d been needing for _hours_. Out loud, she managed only a barely understandable, “ _Yes_.”

Lexa’s shirt drifted to the floor even as Clarke yanked down the shorts she’d been wearing, short nails scraping red lines along the outside of Lexa’s thighs. Then Lexa was on her back with Clarke’s mouth on her, her tongue pressed hard to her clit and fingers slipping inside her, and Lexa cried out, her body already primed so that she was slipping into orgasm even as Clarke was just settling in.

Clarke didn’t stop, the noises she was making messy and wet, and Lexa pulled hard at her hair. She vacillated between wanting more and wanting the teasing to stop, because no matter the fact that Clarke raced her to a second orgasm and then a third, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t what she needed, and she twisted and shuddered and screamed, but she wasn’t fulfilled.

“I know what you want.” Clarke’s voice was low and harsh and her expression feral as she looked up at Lexa from between her legs. She wiped the back of her hand across her face before smearing it against the sheets then stood, shucking out of her pants and underwear with precision. She whipped her top over her head and made quick work of her bra and then her hands were on Lexa’s hips, her grip firm and implacable as she flipped Lexa onto her belly.

“I know exactly what you want, Lexa,” she said, crawling up onto the bed between Lexa’s spread legs, and Lexa couldn’t help herself. Her hips canted up, presenting herself to Clarke with a pleased moan that only deepened when Clarke brought her hand down hard, leaving behind a reddening handprint. “I should make you beg for it.”

And then Clarke was pressed against her, burning against her back as she pinned her to the mattress, and Lexa felt the tip of her cock just barely pressing into her. It was blunt and hot and a tease, not driving inside of her, not filling her. Not doing anything to clear away the morass of tangled, burning need encumbering her thoughts.

“Fuck, Clarke, do it,” she said, voice sharp with desire despite the way it was muffled by her pillow.

“Yeah, I’ll do it,” Clarke said, voice low, running a hand down Lexa’s spine as if to soothe her even as she snapped her hips forward, “This is _my_ job. _Fuck_. Nobody else can give you what you need. Only me, Lexa. Only me.”

Lexa keened in relief even as she flushed with embarrassment at the sound, because Clarke was inside her, filling her and stretching her. Finally.

Behind her, Clarke shifted so that she was straddling Lexa’s thighs, pushing them together, and Lexa gasped at the way it made Clarke feel even bigger inside her. She turned her head to the side, seeing the way Clarke’s forearms were pressed flat to the mattress and her hands were fisting the sheets as she started to move. She pulled back until Lexa felt almost empty before thrusting back in, her rhythm maddeningly steady, and Lexa buried her face into the pillow and cried out with the pleasure of it each time Clarke pressed into her.

With each thrust, Clarke drove just a bit deeper until she was fully sheathed, and Lexa shivered at the feel of Clarke’s hips pressing against her. Even as she did, Clarke shifted, slipping her arms under Lexa’s so that her hands were cupping Lexa’s shoulders from beneath, and she leaned down, breath hot against Lexa’s ear. “Go ahead,” she said, voice low and demanding in a way that spread through Lexa like wildfire. “Touch yourself.”

Lexa did, sliding a hand between her stomach and the mattress until her fingers were against her clit. Clarke kept up a steady flow of broken words against her ear, growls of _mine_ and _fuck_ and _only me_ that made her writhe against the sheets. She was so wet it was hard to get traction, but she knew what her body liked, had already spent half the day with her fingers flicking against her clit, and soon she was bucking forward against her own hand as Clarke pounded into her from behind. The room devolved into a symphony of her breathless, needy whimpers, the wet slide of Clarke’s cock as it moved within her, and the sharp slap of their bodies meeting. Clarke’s fingers dug into her shoulders, using her grip as leverage, and Lexa knew there would be bruises. Some part of her gloried in it, this knowledge that her body would bear the proof of what Clarke was doing to her. It made her want to bury her face more deeply in the pillow so that the long curve of her neck would be bared in hopes that Clarke would sink her teeth in and mark her, and it was only by an extreme exertion of will that she didn’t.

Time stretched, spun out and became unrecognizable, so that Lexa didn’t know how long it’d been since Clarke first filled her.

“Are you ready for me?” Clarke asked, adding enough pressure to her thrusts so that Lexa could feel the first sting of her body stretching open for her knot.

“Yes.” The word was a sob, a plea. “Please, Clarke.”

A moment later, and the feel of Clarke’s breasts pressing tantalizingly against her back was gone. She was aware, dimly, that Clarke had shifted so that she was straddling Lexa’s upper thighs, both hands on her hips to hold her still while Clarke ground into her, but really, the only thoughts registering were a confusing mix of _finally_ and a surety that she’d never be able to take something so _big_. A thought flit through her mind, that Clarke was going to _make_ her, and it settled in before she could chase it away. One hand flew up to brace against the wall, palm first, because she wanted that, wanted Clarke to _make_ her take her knot, wanted Clarke to keep her trapped there until her body submitted to the pressure and opened for her.

“Fuck, Lexa,” Clarke moaned in response to the flood of wetness Lexa’s thoughts had provoked.

She didn’t know if it was because Clarke knew what she wanted or if it was just the Alpha in Clarke rising to the fore, but one of Clarke’s hands slid up her spine to the base of her neck, pinning her down even as Clarke pressed and ground against her, working in the thick swell of her knot with agonizing slowness. “Make me,” Lexa heard herself say, voice high pitched and breathy, and she’d never meant to give voice to the desire. “Make me take your knot, Clarke. _Make me_.”

Clarke’s hips jerked forward as if drawn by the words, and Lexa turned her face into the pillow and bit down. There was a sharp flicker of pain and then Clarke was sinking into her, enveloped by her, and she was locked so tightly around Clarke that each minute shift was amplified beyond reckoning. And then Clarke was moving, grinding against her with one hand still on the back of her neck and the other on the mattress; Lexa’s arm shot out, finding the hand Clarke was using for support and laying her own atop it, fingers slotting between and curling around Clarke’s own as she arched her hips up and screamed her release.

Some part of her realized, dazedly, that it was a wonder she didn’t force Clarke out of her with the intensity of the way her body clenched hard around her, knot or no knot, and even more surprising that Clarke hadn’t followed along after her. Instead of collapsing against her and finding her own release, Clarke gave a harsh, choked cry before letting her hips take more of her weight. Even as Lexa was gasping her way through the unfurling of her orgasm, Clarke was beginning to thrust again, her movements limited to the scant length of shaft nestled below her knot.

At some point, Lexa became aware of the fact that she was saying Clarke’s name with every sharp exhalation of breath, but she couldn’t stop herself. Clarke’s knot was pressing against her in a way that made her wonder if the pleasure would ever stop, orgasm rolling into orgasm until her muscles began to ache from the tension. She was vaguely aware of begging, of broken, possibly incomprehensible entreaties for Clarke to come, to fill her, to mark her and mate her. Vaguely aware, too, of filling the room with pheromones designed to call out to Clarke’s Alpha, yearning and submissive and begging for Clarke’s bite.

“Please,” she whimpered, canting her head to the side and baring her neck. “Please do it.”

And Clarke did, pressing against her back once again, shaft throbbing as she released, and Lexa felt the sharp dig of teeth against her neck, biting down, and lost herself in the pleasure of it.

\------

By the time Lexa recovered the ability to piece thoughts together in a coherent fashion, Clarke had rolled them onto their sides. Lexa vaguely remembered it happening, remembered Clarke’s arms strong around her waist, and Clarke drawing her leg back and over Clarke’s own and bringing her hand down to draw lazy circles over Lexa’s clit in a way that made it impossible for her to ever fully recover her breath. Now, with Clarke’s fingers stilled so that her hand was simply resting gently against her, with the haze of heat receding, and with Clarke’s breath steady against the back of her neck, Lexa could remember.

She stilled, stiffened, her heart racing with something like terror, because she knew what she’d asked for – _begged for_ – and could feel the sharp pain of bruised and broken flesh. “Clarke,” she said, the trepidation she was feeling plain in her voice, “did you…”

Behind her, Clarke pressed her face into Lexa’s hair. Her hand moved from between Lexa’s legs up to the back of her neck, brushing gently against aching skin.

“No,” she said softly, nuzzling against the mark. “My canines broke the skin, but it’s not deep enough. There’s nothing to worry about. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Lexa breathed deeply as she allowed herself to relax. “Thank you.”

“I wanted to.” Clarke moaned sinfully and flicked her tongue over the incipient bite mark. “It was so hard to stop. I don’t know if I’ve ever wanted anything more.” The soft tickle of Clarke’s sigh brushed against the back of Lexa’s neck. “One day. Not yet.”

Lexa felt a surge of need at the implied promise, even as she recognized it was ridiculous. A little more than four months ago, she hadn’t even known Clarke as anything more than a name she’d heard mentioned in passing. Still, she wished she could turn to Clarke. She wished she could kiss her and draw her teeth along the curve where Clarke’s neck met her shoulder in an implied promise of her own.

Clarke’s fingers traced down her arm until they found Lexa’s own. “Was that okay?” she asked hesitantly.

It took Lexa a moment to puzzle out just what Clarke was asking, and that she meant all of it. “It was perfect,” she said, turning her head in hopes of being able to see Clarke. “You were perfect.” She slid their joined hands down until they were between her legs and pressed hard enough to feel the outline of Clarke’s knot inside her.

“Fuck,” Clarke hissed, bucking against her, and Lexa moaned reflexively at the pleasure the move brought.

“You have me like this for at least two more days,” Lexa said, the words coming out as more of a promise than she’d meant, “and then I’m going to tie you up and fuck you with my cock until you’re begging me to let you come. Maybe, once I’m done with you, I’ll let you do the same.”

Clarke bucked against her again, teeth fitting against the bruise on the back of her neck Lexa knew must already be dark. She felt a gentle pull and then Clarke was sliding out of her, and Lexa whimpered at the loss.

“How are you mine?” Clarke asked wonderingly before capturing Lexa’s lips in a kiss. Her cock settled between Lexa’s legs, still hard and sliding against her easily, and Lexa whimpered at the delicious, teasing pressure against her clit. She ached to ask the same question in return, but couldn’t find the wherewithal to form words.

They continued to elude her as she came against Clarke’s cock and then, as she came again, Clarke’s cock buried inside her and her legs up over Clarke’s shoulders, with her nails raking along the side of Clarke’s neck and leaving behind deep red furrows even as Clarke’s fingers dug bruises into her thighs.

“How…” she gasped out, pressing her fingers against Clarke’s lips only to lose her train of thought when Clarke sucked them into her mouth.

“How are you _mine_?” she finally managed, boneless against Clarke after Clarke had rolled their joined bodies so that she was on her back, Lexa atop her.

“How?” Clarke echoed sleepily, pressing a kiss to her sweaty brow. “In all the ways you’ll have me.”

Lexa huffed against her, drawing her tongue up along the line of Clarke’s neck. “You’re no fair,” she complained without rancor, nipping at Clarke’s chin. “You steal my best lines.”

Clarke laughed softly, arms tightening around her. “Lexa, sweetheart, you have no lines.”

“I would, if you didn’t steal them.”

“You don’t need them,” Clarke said, tugging teasingly at Lexa’s hair. “All you have to do is look at me with that look you get and it’s more than enough.”

She had questions about this look, namely just what, exactly, this _look_ looked like, but she was too tired to ask them.

“I’ll figure out how to woo you one day, Clarke Griffin,” she said, burrowing her face into Clarke’s neck.

“You already brought me flowers. How are you going to top that?”

“A blowjob?” she offered up before realizing it, and would have cursed Anya for forever linking the two in her mind if it would have done any good.

Clarke snorted. “And you thought you weren’t romantic.”

“Shut up,” she muttered, pressing her face deeper into Clarke’s neck, immeasurably content.


	4. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A light overview of part of Lexa's heat.

Lexa learned that she had not made appropriate preparations in regards to provisioning when Clarke returned from her sojourn to the kitchen with a half-stale sleeve of crackers and a few slices of cheese.

“I have real food,” Lexa said with a scowl, flicking a crumb off of her sheets.

Clarke looked unimpressed. “Food that has to be cooked. Don’t worry. This is just a snack. I ordered a heat special.”

Lexa was horrified to learn it was an actual thing and not simply something Clarke had euphemistically named.

Forty-five minutes later Lexa was on the couch struggling to catch her breath from an exquisitely timed orgasm that had peaked just as she’d barely registered the knock at the door and Clarke was signing a receipt for 3 large pizzas ( _up to 9 toppings, the online ad noted excitedly_ ), a 24 pack case of water, 2 six-packs of Coke, a pan of brownies, chicken wings, a plastic bowl of salad that could probably double as a bathtub for newborn, a bowl of mixed fruit with an entire bunch of bananas on the side, and a travel-size package of laundry detergent and accompanying dryer sheets.

“Are they under the impression this is an orgy?” Lexa asked, eyes wide as Clarke made multiple trips from the door to the kitchen. She was in a pair of criminally short boyshorts and a tee shirt that technically would have served to hide Clarke’s braless state and still hard cock had it not fit like an only slightly loose second skin. Lexa could only be glad that she didn’t regularly order pizza because she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to look a delivery person in the eye again after they’d seen Clarke answering her door wearing that, though she imagined pizza delivery people carting around something called a ‘heat special’ were prepared to encounter all manner of things. Though, she conceded wryly, there was also the blanketing perfume of sex already well on its way to permeating every square inch of the apartment. She’d have to open all the windows for at least a day before she gave Anya the go-ahead to return; it was already too late for the poor pizza delivery person.

“Eat up, Lexa,” Clarke said, detaching a banana and tossing it in Lexa’s direction. “This is only day one. I don’t want you getting cramps.”

“Just day one, she says,” Lexa muttered under her breath even as she peeled the banana. “You make it sound like a chore.”

Clarke looked over in surprise, an overloaded slice of pizza halfway to her mouth. “A chore?” She seemed genuinely befuddled, apparently not in any kind of state to register teasing. “Are you kidding? This is like Christmas and Halloween and my birthday all in one. It’s pretty much legally mandated that I get to spend the next few days having amazing sex with my smart, super sexy, beautiful girlfriend. I’m so happy I could cry.”

“It’s not actually legally mandated,” Lexa said, suppressing a smile as she rolled her eyes.

She absently took a bite of the banana, still focused on the goofily happy way Clarke was looking at her. Until, that was, Clarke froze, shifted uncomfortably, and hastily dropped the still uneaten piece of pizza she was holding. A flush started creeping up her cheeks in direct proportion to the way her cock was pushing against the front of her shorts, and Lexa tilted her head, confused.

“Clarke?”

Clarke crossed her arms over her chest and looked up, eyes closed, as if seeking help from any benevolent force that might be trawling the universe.

“I thought you were hungry?” Lexa asked, nipping off another bite of banana.

Clarke’s eyes flicked to her face and she moaned. Lexa’s hands fell to her knees, ready to push up off of the couch and find out just what was causing her girlfriend such distress when she noticed that Clarke’s stance had loosened infinitesimally. So maybe this was just a thing that happened to an Alpha in rut, she decided, settling back and going for her third bite of banana when Clarke moaned again.

Lexa decided to try an experiment. Banana to her lips and yes, Clarke looked like she was about to lose all control of her faculties. Banana away from her lips and Clarke looked moderately in control of herself again.

“Clarke,” she began hesitantly, “do you have a thing for bananas?”

Lexa didn’t even know what that thing could be, but the evidence seemed incontrovertible.

Clarke groaned. “No,” she said, face now a deep red. “I just seem to have a thing for vaguely phallic shaped objects in the vicinity of your mouth right now.”

Lexa looked down to the banana and then back to Clarke. “ _Oh._ ”

“I’m going to turn away while you finish,” Clarke said weakly, “and work on being less mortified.”

“Okay, or I could…”

“No!” Clarke snapped, spinning on her heel so that she was facing away from Lexa, hands clenched into fists at her sides. “I promised! No bjs.”

Lexa was behind Clarke, arms wrapped around her waist, before she even fully registered the move. “I was going to say,” Lexa said, breath hot against Clarke’s ear, “that I could finish it later.”

Somehow, Clarke’s face seemed to grow even more flushed with embarrassment.

“But that was before I heard you talk about keeping promises.” Lexa tangled her fingers in Clarke’s, drawing their hands back and pressing Clarke’s fingers between her legs. “Do you feel what that did to me?”

“ _Fuck._ ”

Lexa hummed contentedly. “This respecting my wishes thing you’re doing is really working for me.”

Her hand slid down and under the waistband of Clarke’s shorts to wrap around her cock, making Clarke swallow hard.

“In fact, I was thinking that maybe you’d like to bend me over this counter and…” Lexa trailed off with a yelp as Clarke spun around, stepping forward to bring their lips together and somehow managing to trap Lexa between the very counter she’d just mentioned and Clarke’s hips. “Or this is good too,” she managed breathily as her back hit marble and her legs came up to wrap around Clarke’s waist.

\------

Number 5 million and counting on the list of things she’d never thought she’d do, Lexa thought, as she took a bite from the piece of pizza Clarke was holding to her lips. By some twist of good fortune, Lexa hadn’t knocked the pizzas to the floor while getting fucked on the _countertop_ – and damn it, but there were so many things in the apartment to disinfect _already_ , and it was still the first day – so now she was filled with her girlfriend’s knot, legs twined lazily around Clarke’s and one arm over her shoulders, eating pizza.

She felt like a degenerate.

“So good,” Clarke mumbled, taking a bite from the other side of the _same slice_. It was damn near intolerable.

“That’s my slice,” she said with a huff, aware that she looked disgruntled but not able to do anything about it.

Clarke chuckled with gentle humor. “Are you seriously freaking out about sharing this delicious slice of pizza with me?”

Lexa tried for a glare but wasn’t entirely sure she managed anything better than a pout.

“You are.” Clarke grinned widely, a mischievous look in her eyes that Lexa absolutely did not trust. With good reason, she confirmed to herself a moment later, when Clarke’s hand slid to her lower back and pulled at the same time as she pushed forward in a motion that made her knot grind into Lexa with undeniable deliciousness. Lexa moaned, her head falling to Clarke’s shoulder as a muted wave of pleasure coursed through her. “I suppose it is a little intimate,” Clarke said, even as the thumb of her now pizza-less hand found Lexa’s clit and flicked against it. “But if you think we’re not at that stage in our relationship…”

In retaliation, Lexa bit down hard on the curve of Clarke’s shoulder.

\------

After Clarke made her come on the countertop _again_ , they’d managed to actually finish off some of the pizza and take a shower. Lexa had actually put that travel pack of laundry detergent to use, but all of that hard work was being quickly undone. At the very least, the freshly washed sheets smelled like a field of springtime flowers when Lexa pressed her face into them and screamed.

She’d started on her hands and knees, but sometime around her second orgasm, her arms had given way. To be honest, she wasn’t sure how Clarke was managing to sustain her steady pace. They’d only managed sleep in two and three hour chunks the night before, and even if they’d worked together to devour the fruit bowl, she was fairly certain Clarke shouldn’t have enough energy to maintain a pace she’d label blistering if asked to put a name to it. Then again, she was fairly certain that Clarke was deep in the grips of her rut in a way Lexa hadn’t seen from her the first time they’d spent her heat together.

It was… well, Lexa had decided to give herself over to it because she wasn’t quite sure she could do anything else. Slick was dripping down her thighs and Clarke’s hips were smacking against the curve of her ass with a bruising snap. She was halfway convinced she wasn’t going to be able to remain on her knees much longer even as she felt her orgasm building once again, and the only reason she wasn’t coming was because she’d snapped at Clarke with enough vehemence that the hand between her legs had been withdrawn. It was just that she wasn’t sure she could take another, not with as sensitive as she was, but that didn’t mean she wanted Clarke to stop fucking her.

And the things Clarke was saying – Lexa wasn’t into growled promises about how Clarke was going to _breed_ her. Normally. Normally she wasn’t into that, and normally Clarke wasn’t the kind of Alpha who kept up a litany about it, but she’d allow that, in special circumstances, she might moan out a desperate yes to any confident assertions Clarke might make about how much she wanted just that and, in that moment, she might actually mean it.

This was why smart Omegas were on long-acting contraceptives. Smart Omegas knew it was a phenomenally bad idea to let heat drive that kind of decision-making, because at that very moment, Lexa very much wanted Clarke to knot her and fill her with so much cum that it would otherwise be inevitable because of the laws of physics or whatever it was that drove the whole process. Lexa didn’t know – she wasn’t in the hard sciences.

“I’m so sorry,” Clarke said an hour later, when Lexa was loading the sheets into the washer yet again because apparently, a paired Alpha at the peak of her rut was a copious Alpha.

“So sorry,” Clarke said again, and Lexa found herself lifted up so she was perched on top of the washing machine she’d just started. “I didn’t mean it.”

Lexa knew Clarke hadn’t meant it, just as Clarke knew Lexa hadn’t meant it, but Clarke seemed determined to give her apology oral and Lexa wasn’t inclined to turn it down.

“Gentle,” she hissed, because two days of marathon fucking did that kind of thing. They were absolutely going to have to take a break after this, no matter what their hormones said, because Lexa had just been fucked six ways from Sunday and she needed a nap and possibly a banana. Maybe an ice pack, too, but fuck, it’d been worth it. And this was worth it too, Clarke’s tongue soft and warm against her, working her toward an orgasm that broke over her like an ocean wave to leave behind contentment in its wake.

“You’re wiping down the washer,” she said after, tired and boneless as her fingers moved lazily through Clarke’s hair. “It’s your turn. I cleaned the countertop.”

“I did the couch.” Clarke’s voice was muffled against her thigh, and she followed the words with an unexpected nip of the teeth that made Lexa yelp unbecomingly.

Lexa rolled her eyes. “You sprayed it down with disinfectant. Doesn’t count,” she said, wiggling her leg so that Clarke was displaced from her comfortable perch. “Next heat, we’re staying at your place.”

“Next heat, huh?”

When she looked down, Clarke’s eyes were electric blue and her smile stretched across her face, contented and happy. Her initial impulse was to walk it back, to play off the accidentally implied promise, but she couldn’t, not with Clarke smiling at her like that. So she rolled her eyes and held out her arms in a prompt for Clarke to help her down. She huffed through Clarke’s tight hug and the way Clarke pressed her face into Lexa’s neck, covering the skin with her scent, and slid her hands down to cup Lexa’s ass, likely because she was disturbingly attached to that part of Lexa’s anatomy.

It was a little ridiculous, because Lexa was pretty sure she was going to reek of Clarke for at least a week, no matter how many showers she took. Some part of it was even a little mortifying because she didn’t completely hate it, this tangible marker of _yes, this is my human, kindly back away_. She _had_ hated it, or at least had hated the idea of it, but for as much as Clarke was burned into her skin, she was burned into Clarke’s. That made it feel less like oppressive possession and more like a joint declaration of mutual _into-one-anotherness_ , which Lexa found tolerable. Surprisingly, and in direct contravention to her thoughts on the subject just a few months previously, which she was consciously and adamantly ignoring.

Clarke had turned her into such a hypocrite.

“I’m going to cook,” Clarke mumbled against her skin. “Why don’t you go take a nap?”

Case in point: pre-Clarke, any such suggestion that she hie herself off for a nap, as if she was a small child in danger of becoming cranky, would have resulted in a dressing down. _At the least_. With-Clarke, she was aware that they were treading dangerously close to _I am Alpha and must pamper my helpless delicate Omega flower during her heat_ territory, but she _was_ tired and it _would_ be nice to eat something other than cold, leftover pizza, so… So maybe she could get a massage out of it, too. She _had_ been using some muscles much more strenuously than usual, and needs must.

\------

She awoke starfished out across the bed on her belly with Clarke’s leg thrown over her hips and Clarke’s head on her arm in a way that couldn’t have been comfortable for Clarke and left her arm numb. Clarke’s hair was a wild, tangled mess – they’d both gone to bed with wet hair – that was hiding her eyes but not the gentle, soft snores that accompanied each rise and fall of her chest. Lexa squinted over at the clock, relieved to find that they’d managed to sleep past ten because they’d needed it. She felt only vaguely aroused, which was a definite improvement from the two days previous where any passage of time greater than two hours in which she hadn’t been fucked left her dripping and only semi-coherent. She no longer felt an irresistibly irrational desire to buy a crib from Amazon at two in the morning, idly browse maternity wear, or plant herself on all fours in anticipation of Clarke’s awakening, which was _fantastic_. Now, the desire was only resistibly irrational.

Heat absolutely fucked with her mind.

“Shit,” Clarke moaned from beside her, shifting with unanticipated suddenness. “Cramp.”

Despite herself, Lexa could only laugh as Clarke rubbed furiously as her calf, looking up with pleading eyes and a _babe can’t you just go get me a banana or something, stop laughing please_.

After all, start of day three and for once, Clarke was the one begging.

 


	5. Party Girl Griffin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Head's up - herein you will find cocksucking, rimming, some insulting language (not delivered by either Lexa or Clarke), insecurity, and some body image issues.

Lexa had been out with Clarke before, so it wasn’t as if she didn’t know that her girlfriend could adult reasonably well, but there was a difference between hitting up all you can eat pancakes at IHOP for a stress-free Sunday breakfast together and introducing her to her professors and fellow students. Which, okay, she allowed. That wasn’t fair to Clarke. It wasn’t even fair to herself. It was just that it was a big deal, this attending of functions together.

“I’m pretty sure you’re low-key in love with your advisor,” Clarke had told her only the day before, when Lexa had been agonizing over whether or not to take a bottle of wine. “I’ll try not to act too jealous.”

She’d been grinning when she said it, and it wasn’t as if it was true, but Lexa knew she lost pretty much all of her chill at just the thought of the upcoming beginning of term gathering. Nearly all of the professors would be there, along with the doctoral students, which meant this was going to be the first time Lexa was invited to breathe that rarified air. It was a marker. A milestone. She was being welcomed into a club of people who were taken seriously and who she wanted to take her seriously too.

“Just take a bottle of wine!” Anya had yelled at her before fleeing the apartment and its attendant agony of indecision. “Go with something from South Africa. Don’t be boring.”

She hadn’t come back, but because Anya’s advice had been surprisingly helpful recently, Lexa had a bottle of Pinotage sitting on the counter just waiting to be delivered. She was wearing slim fitting black pants with a shimmering sleeveless top in vibrant red, and she was probably going to lose her mind if Clarke didn’t show up soon.

She’d started a text alluding to that fact when she nearly dropped the phone at a sharp knock. Lexa grabbed the bottle of wine and her purse, smoothed a hand over her stomach, and then nearly dropped the bottle of wine when she opened the door.

“Clarke.” There was no way to keep the surprise out of her voice. Clarke was smiling at her shyly, as if waiting for Lexa’s judgment, but Lexa couldn’t speak. Clarke had her hair pulled up in some kind of fancy arrangement and was wearing a dress, a navy affair with a thick white border around its high collar, and Lexa was literally speechless.

“It’s okay, right?”

“Yes.” Lexa nodded furiously. “Wow.”

“Yeah?”

“You look amazing.”

Clarke grinned. “You’re not just saying that?”

Lexa shook her head.

Clarke’s grin widened. “You look pretty amazing yourself. I see you’re showing off the guns.”

It was enough to break Lexa out of her trance. “Thanks,” she said, shoving the bottle of wine at Clarke and rolling her eyes simultaneously, which was certainly an improvement over being stunned into silence.

“Always a good choice.” Clarke let her eyes drift over Lexa, not at all bothering to hide her appreciation. She licked her lips, and the grin shifted into a smirk. “Are you wearing your glasses so you’ll look smart for all your smart friends?”

Lexa wanted to protest but could only blush.

“I’ll be honest, it’s working for me,” Clarke said, sliding an arm around Lexa’s waist. With Clarke in heels, they were actually the same height for once, which Lexa found to be an interesting perspective. “It’s not quite sexy librarian, but we could get there. Put your hair up, find a shirt that buttons all the way up… I’d let you punish me for all kinds of library infractions.” She tilted her chin down and looked up at Lexa through her lashes. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get this book back on time, Miss Woods. I hope you’re not too terribly upset. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get back in your good graces.”

Clarke’s voice was promisingly contrite in a way Lexa assured herself in no way made her want to search through her closet for appropriate librarian wear.

“Clarke,” she said, her own voice halfway between a warning and a whine.

Clarke’s hand slid lower until she was cupping Lexa’s ass. “Why do you always look so good? Fuck, I wish you were wearing only those glasses and nothing else. Do we have time for…”

Lexa’s glare was enough for her to reconsider finishing the question, apparently, because Clarke gave her a shrug and a half-apologetic smile.

“We’re going to be late,” Lexa said, managing to separate herself from Clarke so that she could close and lock the door. “And if you ever do want to see just what you’d have to do to get back in my good graces after your willful flouting of library rules, Miss Griffin, you’ll keep your hands off my ass tonight.”

From the way Clarke pouted at her, Lexa might have concluded that the thought caused her actual physical pain. “Come on,” she said with fond exasperation, reaching out a hand for Clarke to take.

It’d been something she’d been doing more of in the weeks following her last heat, these little gestures of physical affection. Whether Clarke had consciously noticed or not, Lexa was fairly certain her subconscious had. She seemed more at ease with the relationship, which Lexa thought was fairly ironic since if anyone had been asked to pick which of the two of them was more in need of being more at ease with their relationship, she’d put down big money on the answer being _not Clarke_. Still, Clarke seemed to settle into the reassurance of touch in a way Lexa personally thought to be disproportionate to the size of the gesture. Hold her hand and she grinned. Hold her hand in public and she walked with her shoulders back and a wide smile on her face. Sidle up to her while she was talking to someone and wrap an arm around her waist and it was a good thing someone was tethering her to the ground.

So Lexa, who was not wholly resistant to public displays of affection but who tried to limit them to around one every three months, purposely adopted a strategy which increased that by a factor of roughly one million (though to be honest, math was not her strong suit) because it seemed to make Clarke _happy_.

Such was how she found herself walking hand in hand up the steps of her advisor’s porch, trying not to panic.

“Baby, you know all of these people,” Clarke said, squeezing her fingers, and Lexa wondered what gave it away – the sweaty palms or the fine tremor. “And you’re like, amazing. Unless you’re worried about me, which, you shouldn’t. I am one hundred percent ready to be the perfect trophy girlfriend. My plan for the night is to smile and tell everyone how smart you are.”

“Okay, okay,” Lexa muttered under her breath. “Clear eyes, full heart…”

Clarke gave their joined hands a tug, prompting Lexa to look over at her. “Can’t lose,” she finished, smile wide.

All too soon, they were opening the door to a smiling Gustus.

“Lexa!” he boomed, taking the bottle of wine Clarke offered.

“Gustus,” she greeted in turn, and though she felt pretty sure the signifier wouldn’t be needed in light of the way Clarke was holding her hand, Lexa offered it anyway. “This is my girlfriend Clarke.”

“It’s so nice to meet you, Dr. Oake,” Clarke said, offering her now wine-free hand in greeting.

Later, when Gustus disappeared to uncork the wine, Clarke whispered, “You didn’t tell me he was a literal giant.”

Lexa saw him almost every day, so she supposed she’d forgotten that Gustus could be a little hard to process all at once. There _was_ nearly six and a half feet of him, with a fair portion of that covered in black and grayscale tattoos, and he did have a magnificently and beautifully curated five o’clock shadow no matter the time of day. His hair was shaved close on the side but otherwise quite long; he had a habit of drawing it back in elaborate braids that were frankly a little jealousy-inspiring. Honestly, Lexa didn’t know if he was a hipster or if he’d actually emerged from some sort of survivalist upbringing with interesting fashion quirks. Either way, it worked for him.

She rolled her eyes at Clarke’s theatrics. “He’s a marshmallow. His favorite movie is The Proposal.”

“How do you know his favorite movie?”

“I learned it at some departmental ice breaker thing.”

Clarke looked around at the gathering of faculty and students, the majority of whom towered over her and were literally strapped with muscle, as if she was trying to picture any of them engaging in an ice breaker that didn’t involve an actual pick-ax. “Did you accidentally bring me to, like, an Alpha clan meeting?” she asked, eyes bouncing from one hulking specimen to another.

Lexa shrugged. “The Security Studies program draws in a lot of Alphas, I guess.”

“Lexa, that’s your program.”

“Well, yeah, but I’m combining it with Conflict Resolution.”

Clarke was watching her as if in anticipation of a bit more explanation than that.

So maybe _technically_ she was the only Omega in the Security Studies program. It _was_ a small program.

“It’s not a big deal, Clarke.”

Clarke’s expression was skeptical. “Come on, Lexa. You’re telling me you spend your days with a room full of Alphas and they haven’t pulled any jackass moves?”

“My classmates know to treat me with professional respect,” she said primly, leaving off the _now_.

“I’ll be happy to have a discussion with any one of them about the proper respect they need to have for my girl if they step out of line,” Clarke growled. Her brow was crinkled and her jaw was set pugnaciously, and she was eyeing each of Lexa’s classmates as if she was sizing them up as potential enemy combatants.

Because she was fonder of Clarke than she generally liked to admit, Lexa let her have that one.

\------

At some point she realized Clarke hadn’t returned to her side and scanned the room, terrified, only to become even more terrified when she saw that Clarke was locked into an intense discussion with her classmate Indra. Indra was ex-military and frighteningly intense, and if she could have picked anyone other than her for her usually easy going girlfriend to become trapped in conversation with, Lexa would have done so.

She sidled over, ready to slide an arm around Clarke’s waist and extricate her from what could only be an uncomfortable situation only to find the two in what appeared to be a deeply philosophical but enjoyable discussion of the Mandalorian schism. For a long moment, she was proud of Clarke’s mastery of what must have been an esoteric geopolitical event, given that even Lexa had never heard of it, before Clarke finally looked over at her, grinned, and said, “Star Wars, baby,” in explanation before turning back to Indra with what appeared to be an apologetic shrug. “She doesn’t even know the original trilogy from the prequels, much less the expanded universe.”

Indra gave Clarke a pitying look, and Lexa wasn’t sure whether she should feel proud that Clarke was bonding with ease with one of her most difficult classmates or offended that it seemed to be at her expense.

\------

“That was exhausting,” Clarke said, collapsing into the passenger’s seat.

“Everybody loved you.” Lexa meant it. Everyone had loved Clarke. She’d charmed smiles out of everyone she’d met except maybe Emerson, but that wasn’t really her fault.

“Please,” Clarke scoffed. “Did you honestly not see all of that posturing?”

Lexa was too embarrassed to admit that she hadn’t seen much beyond the way Clarke seemed to fit into her world effortlessly and in a way that was ridiculously attractive, so she remained silent.

“I thought that Alie chick was literally going to whip out her dick and hunt down a tape measure.”

“She can be a little intense,” Lexa allowed.

“And don’t even get me started on Gustus. Yeah, he’s a great big teddy bear until he’s got you in the corner,” Clarke said, rolling her eyes. Her voice dropped an octave and took on an oddly fussy air. “ _Lexa could be governor someday. She could be a senator or president or a member of cabinet. She could be an agency head. She could be whatever she wants. Don’t pull any stupid Alpha shit and mess this up for her, and for fuck’s sake, don’t get her pregnant._ ”

Lexa laughed and drummed her fingers along the top of the steering wheel, all of her stress and anxiety over the evening dissolved into giddy lightness now that it was over. “He did not say that.”

“Uh, yeah he did.” Clarke cut her eyes at her. “But don’t worry, I told him I didn’t have any plans to knock you up for at least the next 3 to 6 weeks.”

“Clarke!” Lexa sounded scandalized.

“What?” Clarke’s eyes widened innocently. “You’re going to be President. I’ve got to lock all this down if I want to live my lifelong dream of being a kept woman. I’ll have you know I’m spectacularly well suited to the role of welcoming my hard-working, important, and influential special lady friend home with graphically debauched sexual favors after a hard day’s work fixing the world’s problems.”

“You know that’s not really funny though, right?”

Clarke squirmed under the power of Lexa’s arched eyebrow.

“Yeah,” she admitted, wilting slightly under Lexa’s glare.

“Because it happens.” Lexa sighed and rolled her eyes. “I know you were kidding.”

“I didn’t actually say that to him,” Clarke said sheepishly. “I pretty much just promised I’d do my best not to ruin your life and tried not to look as terrified as I felt. I know you say he’s this big softie, but your advisor is seriously intimidating. I have no doubt he wouldn’t hesitate to murder me if you gave him the go ahead, and no one would find me, Lexa. That man looks like he knows what he’s about.”

Lexa was pretty sure that he did know what he was about, but didn’t think Clarke would find her confirmation comforting. Instead, she changed the subject to something she knew would instantly garner all of Clarke’s attention.

“I have thoughts about this dress,” she said contemplatively, glancing over at Clarke out of the corner of her eye.

Clarke looked down and then back up, unsure. “Yeah?”

Lexa grinned. “I’m thinking I’d like you to keep it on.”

Unsure morphed into confused. “Okay?”

“It should be fine so long as I’m on top.”

She found the strangled sound Clarke made in response highly satisfying.

\------

The only reason Lexa felt okay about the fact that she was following Clarke across campus was because she didn’t actually believe that Clarke was doing anything untoward. The confidence wasn’t even borne out of a belief in the security of their relationship so much as it was the plain truth that Clarke was fairly miserable at hiding things from her if they were of any importance whatsoever. Clarke with a secret was adorably and painfully obvious in her furtiveness, but whatever it was, Lexa was surprised to find herself supremely unworried. Clarke was hiding something, yes, and that fact was driving Lexa a little crazy with curiosity, true, but that was all.

Consequently, she felt only mildly uncomfortable engaging in a bit of curious spying.

It became slightly more difficult when Clarke made her way past the more crowded part of campus, moving doggedly in the direction of what Lexa was fairly certain was the soccer team’s practice field. She thought it might have something to do with intramurals for a moment because Clarke tended to get boastful when she was inebriated, confidently predicting the dominance of her proposed 6-on-6 squad even as Octavia pointed out that the pre-K team they’d been on together when they were 4 had gone 0-9 and that Clarke hadn’t touched a soccer ball since.

“Technicalities,” Clarke would huff and point an accusing finger. “I know I possess untapped greatness.”

It generally devolved from there. Uncouth jokes about just who and what had tapped Clarke would be made and Clarke would scowl endearingly and Lexa would shake her head and remind herself that this was just the way Clarke’s friends bonded. Usually, Anya would smirk at her as if she possessed secret knowledge which, Lexa had to reluctantly admit, she probably did. Occasionally, someone would mime something obscene, and even though no one bothered to clarify – what was being mimed was clear, but who was supposed to being doing said action to whom was not – Lexa would still get flustered, even when she wasn’t sure if she was actually included in the equation. At some point, she would find herself with Clarke wrapped around her or draped over her lap, likely trying to engage in a public display of affection that skirted the bounds of Lexa’s comfort with such things, and Lexa would blush and Anya would laugh and Clarke would nuzzle into her, seemingly oblivious to it all.

So no, whatever Clarke’s secret, Lexa wasn’t worried about it.

Through a measure of stealth that was actually more about slipping under the bleachers while everyone else was facing the other direction, Lexa managed to secure herself a hiding place in the shade. On the far end of the field clumped a highly mismatched group of 12 in generally mismatched sportswear. At a clap from a tall, burly, bald man at their center, the group spread out between small orange cones and began working their way through a series of stretches.

Lexa’s brow furrowed. Clarke was hiding… _exercising_?

The burly bald man spent the next half hour barking out orders and blowing sharply on his whistle while his students sprinted and lunged and did jumping jacks, and the longer Lexa listened, the more infuriated she became.

“Are you even trying, you pussy?” he snapped at Clarke, who was bent over with her hands on her knees, panting hard. Clarke looked up at him, face dripping with sweat, and dropped to the ground to try and struggle through another burpee. “That’s better. We’ll make an Alpha out of you yet. Come on, Griffin. Nut up, unless you want to spend your life on your hands and knees like some Omega whore. You’d probably like that, you dickless runt. Don’t stop now. Give me one more, you worthless, pathetic excuse for an Alpha.”

Lexa was stalking across the field before she even realized it. Thirty yards out and she could finally see the words on the back of the man’s shirt – _ABC Bootcamp: Alphas Being Champs_. Twenty yards out and some of the other camp-goers were looking at her with wide eyes. Ten yards out and Clarke was struggling to her feet with a clear expression of surprise, one hand outstretched as her mouth opened to say something.

Zero yards out and Lexa was cradling her hand and a perplexed boot camp instructor was looking down at her, working his jaw from side to side.

“What the fuck?” he said, both physically and metaphorically blindsided by the punch.

“You don’t get to talk to her like that,” Lexa growled, still so furious she could barely see straight. Her hand curled into a fist again and even though she winced against what were at the least seriously bruised knuckles, the idea of breaking the asshole’s nose was too great for her to do anything other than contemplate letting another punch fly.

Clarke’s hand on her wrist and the confused look on her face were the only things that stopped her. “Lexa, what are you doing here?”

Behind them, the boot camp instructor scoffed. “This is your _Omega_? No wonder you’re here, Griffin. Pathetic.”

Lexa’s eyes narrowed. “Call her pathetic one more time,” she sneered threateningly.

Clarke’s grip on her wrist tightened, and Lexa looked over at her, eyes still flashing dangerously, only to feel her heart skip a beat when she found Clarke looking back at her pleadingly. “I can handle this,” Clarke said, giving her a subdued, crooked smile.

“I guess I’m finished here, Quint,” she said, leaning over to grab her water bottle. “It looks like my girl doesn’t really like you, probably because you’re an asshole who buys into asshole genera stereotypes. That's a fancy word she taught me, by the way. Anyway, they're not really her thing. I guess they're not really mine either.” She walked back over to where she’d left her bag, inadvertently tugging Lexa along with her. “Stay strong, my fellow fuck-ups, and maybe one day you, too, will have someone who’ll punch the absolute fuck out of someone for you,” she called out to the rest of the group, looking them over with a fond shake of the head. “Let me know when you finally get laid, Miller. I’ll throw you a party. Everybody has my number, right? Beers next Thursday at The Crash Site? Happy hour starts at five.”

As Lexa trailed along behind Clarke feeling 12 pairs of eyes watching her unabashedly, hand in undamaged hand, she began to feel the first stirrings of mortification.

\------

“Lexa, baby,” Clarke said, shaking her head and frowning down at Lexa’s swollen, bruised knuckles in the harsh light of her apartment’s kitchen. “What were you thinking?” She pulled away, rooting through drawers until she had a thin cloth and a plastic baggie, which she filled with ice.

Lexa blushed. “I didn’t like hearing him say those things to you,” she admitted, hissing when Clarke fit the cloth-covered bag of ice to her sore knuckles. “I guess I didn’t like hearing those things at all, but he was… Clarke…” She looked up beseechingly, willing Clarke to understand why she couldn’t let his words go unchallenged, especially not when they were directed at _her_. “You don’t believe that, do you? What he was saying?”

Clarke just sighed.

“Clarke?”

“What were you even doing there?”

Embarrassment and guilt filtered through her, making her draw her shoulders tight. “I was curious,” she admitted. “I saw you and decided to follow you. I knew you were keeping something from me, and I didn’t care what it was – honestly Clarke – but I was just… curious.” She shrugged, well aware of the inadequacy of the explanation. “In retrospect, I realize it was creepier than I intended. You’re just so bad at keeping secrets, which, honestly, I love about you. You were trying to be sneaky but you just can’t, and it was driving me a little crazy.”

Clarke’s shoulders slumped dejectedly.

“Hey, no,” Lexa said, alarmed. She wrapped an arm around Clarke’s waist and pulled her close, so concerned that she didn’t even care that Clarke was still a sweaty mess. And _shit_ , but what _was_ the right response? Apologize again? Would flowers even work this time?

Clarke’s sigh cut through her building panic. “I feel like an idiot.”

Correction. Clarke’s sigh was a temporary interruption of her panic, which had resumed and was escalating wildly. “What?” Lexa pulled back far enough to look at her, trying to meet with eyes that wouldn’t meet with hers. “No, Clarke, it’s my fault…”

“I’m not mad at you, Lexa.”

Which, though she was glad to hear it, was heartening but not explanatory. She was filled with an overwhelming desire to fix when she didn’t even know what was broken, and defaulted to pressing kisses along the curve of Clarke’s neck in an instinctively soothing gesture.

“You know none of those things he was saying are true, right?” Lexa asked, lips pressed to Clarke’s pulse and the salt of her sweat against her tongue.

Clarke scoffed. “I think we both know that’s not true.”

“No.” Lexa couldn’t stand it any longer. She kissed Clarke, nipping and licking at Clarke’s lips until Clarke returned the kiss.

Clarke allowed it for long enough that Lexa thought maybe she’d convinced her until Clarke pulled away.

“I am a runt,” she said with a shrug, teeth nibbling on the inside of the corner of her mouth. “I’m a runt, and I’m soft, and you spend every day surrounded by, like, model Alphas and it’s just a matter of time before you figure out that you can do better.”

Lexa blinked, completely unprepared for the self-loathing she could feel almost rolling off of her girlfriend. “Clarke, what? No. What are you even talking about? Is that why you were at that stupid boot camp? You think I…” Lexa trailed off, realizing that she couldn’t even speculate about what was on Clarke’s mind.

“I mean, look at me,” Clarke said, stepping back and pulling up the hem of her shirt far enough to poke at the gentle slope of skin leading to her hip.

“Anytime,” Lexa said, reaching out to catch Clarke’s hand and holding on tightly. “I love looking at you.”

Clarke glared up at her though her lashes.

“I mean it, Clarke,” Lexa said, taking the hem of Clarke’s shirt in her hands and pulling upward. With some reluctance, Clarke raised her arms to let her. “I love your body. I love your curves.” She ran her hands down Clarke’s sides appreciatively. “I really, _really_ love your curves.”

She could feel Clarke studying her, expression skill skeptical.

Lexa took a step closer, pulling Clarke’s hips forward so that they were pressed together intimately. “I love the way we fuck.” She darted forward, catching Clarke’s lower lip between her teeth in a stinging bite. “I love _all_ the ways we fuck.”

With a sigh, Clarke began to relax against her and something in Lexa’s chest unclenched.

“If you want a workout, go to Anya’s gym. If you were doing that for me, don’t.” Lexa brushed her fingers against Clarke’s now swollen bottom lip. “Now go take a shower.”

When Clarke walked into her room 20 minutes later, a towel wrapped around her and wet hair brushed straight back away from her face, it was to find Lexa sitting in a nest of bedsheets, naked, with her hair spilling over her shoulder. Her expression morphed from leftover resignation to a hesitant grin as she watched Lexa scoot to the edge of the bed so that she was sitting with her feet on the floor, legs spread, waiting.

It took an effort of will to convince at least part of herself that she wasn’t ridiculously self-conscious, as naked, vulnerable, and open as she was, but Lexa had a plan. She wasn’t especially convinced that Clarke believed her, and honestly, when it came to emotion, words were rarely her strong suit. True, she’d babbled more of them in Clarke’s general direction than she had in probably any other relationship she’d had, in words per time spent together, but any oracular prowess she might possess was oriented strictly in academia.

Actually, Lexa corrected herself, she had _two_ plans. Plan one might be more hastily constructed, but she’d been pondering the second plan for a bit longer. It had started off as a hesitant internet query about something she thought was a thing – was pretty sure she’d heard was a thing – and had spiraled into a series of articles that she hastily deleted from her browser history. Just because she might be willing to try something didn’t mean that she was willing to have anyone stumble onto her _research_.

“Baby,” she said, tugging at the hem of Clarke’s towel, softening her up with the use of a pet name and a sweet smile, and altogether doing a horrible job of looking like she _wasn’t_ planning something, “there’s something I’ve been wanting to try.”

Clarke was already nodding, and it wasn’t that Lexa didn’t know that she could get Clarke to do all manner of things just by asking, but it was still somehow heartening. It also meant she didn’t technically have to lay everything out in detail, which was just as well, because intentions and actions sometimes didn’t follow the same trajectory.

She tugged a little harder and the towel drifted to the floor. “Lay down,” she said, watching with interest as a bead of water traced through the valley between Clarke’s breasts.

Before that lone, traitorous drop of water had distracted her, Lexa’s plan had been to work her way up Clarke’s body starting at the ankles, but like she’d already accepted, intentions ≠ actions. Surely it just meant she’d have to be especially attentive to Clarke’s breasts and hope that multiplied itself out to the general overall sense of appreciation she’d been shooting for in the first place.

“ _Yes_ ,” Clarke moaned beneath her as Lexa closed her teeth around an already hard nipple.

She wasn’t quite sure where the line between especially attentive and excessively attentive lay, but she didn’t think Clarke minded. Far from it, judging by the way her eyes were glassy and her cock hard and dripping against Lexa’s stomach. She’d… yeah, she acknowledged, looking down at her work with what she admitted was pride. She’d maybe gone a little overboard, and Clarke’s breasts were littered with the faint hints of burgeoning bruises and the red sting of bite marks, but in her defense, Clarke had spent the entire time alternating between _yes_ and _more_ and _please_ , so it wasn’t as if her attention was unwanted. It fucked up her plan a little, the one where she’d been so set on worshipping every inch of Clarke until she believed she was as beautiful as Lexa knew her to be, but she thought maybe she’d managed the same in spirit even if the execution was a bit more localized than intended.

“Clarke,” she said, kissing her way up until her lips were pressed to Clarke’s ear, “I need you to be patient.”

Clarke looked at her as if she couldn’t understand the words, and Lexa held in a sigh.

“If you feel the need to hold onto something…” she said, reaching down and bringing Clarke’s hands up and pressing her palms against her own breasts, giving a gentle squeeze to make her point.

She was just going to have to assume that Clarke understood.

The thing was, Lexa enjoyed going down on her partners. She’d spent her fair share of time between a pretty girl’s legs with her tongue pressed against warm, wet skin, and part of her missed it. There’d been a few abortive attempts with Clarke early in their time together, when she’d brought her mouth to the head of Clarke’s cock and licked tentatively, but it’d all felt a bit too aggressive. Literally in her face, perhaps, and it wasn’t that Clarke had done anything to make it that way, but she’d found herself unable to divorce herself from the jut of Clarke’s cock and the mental image of herself and what she’d look like servicing some Alpha – no, not _some_ Alpha. Clarke. But, that had been when they were new to one another, when just the thought of it made her shoulders tense, and she’d never been with someone with a _cock_ and was still having to figure out a few things.

She settled between Clarke’s legs, fought the instinct to throw them over her shoulders, and leaned down until she could feel the heat of Clarke against her lips.

“Lexa.” Clarke’s voice was the personification of torn, like she couldn’t figure out if she was pleading for more or on the verge of telling Lexa not to do what she so obviously wanted done to her.

Lexa looked up at her, losing herself in Clarke’s eyes for a long moment. “Be patient,” she said again, her voice gentle, coaxing.

She couldn’t say she’d ever really studied Clarke’s cock as intently as she was at that moment. She knew the feel of it in her hand and inside her, but she’d never settled in and simply looked. It wasn’t that she had a point for comparison, other than the toys she sometimes used to help with her heat, but she didn’t necessarily need that to know that Clarke was big. It was just a by-product of biology – Alphas had big cocks and Omegas had bodies with features designed to help them take them. It was what it was. Still, there was knowing that and there was seeing the way the tip of her middle finger and thumb barely brushed when she wrapped her hand around Clarke. And she knew, had been told, that she was particularly gifted in the fingers department, which made it all a bit dizzying when she tried to focus on the mechanics.

“There’s no way this is going to fit in my mouth,” she muttered in consternation, not even aware she’d said it out loud until Clarke made a noise halfway between a moan and a laugh. Lexa sighed and, since she’d already started the conversation, apparently, decided to continue it. “Seriously, Clarke. I can’t unhinge my jaw. You’ll just have to make do with my tongue and whatever I can manage.”

Lexa was unaware that she was scowling at Clarke’s cock like it was a puzzle to be solved.

Clarke’s eyes softened and Lexa felt a comforting heat spread through her chest. “You don’t have to do this at all,” she said, forgetting Lexa’s admonition as she reached down to scratch short nails against the back of Lexa’s neck. “But if you want to, do whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“Just… just be quiet and let me figure this out.”

To buy herself a bit more time, Lexa darted down to place wet, open-mouthed kisses against the silky skin of Clarke’s inner thighs. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t put a lot of thought into this. She had. She’d mapped out strategies. She’d watched _porn_. She’d watched _Alpha on Alpha_ porn, because she’d figured that there was no better way to learn to suck cock than by watching the way someone who had one went about it. Granted, had that been her sole source of information, she’d have come away under the impression that it involved a lot of growling and threats to put someone _on their knees where they belonged_ and possibly military fatigues, but as an overview, it had been quite illuminating.

“Nope,” she said, surprising herself. “I can’t start here.”

“Lexa…” And Lexa knew that Clarke was going to tell her, again, that she didn’t have to do this at all, and she just didn’t want to hear it.

So, she interrupted. “Do you trust me?”

Clarke looked down at her, perplexed, as if she could think of no greater expression of trust than that of letting someone have their teeth so very close to her genitals.

“Good,” Lexa said, aware that she sounded disconcertingly businesslike but unable to help it, “because I have something else I’d like to try, so if you wouldn’t mind, could you roll over?”

Even though she was visible confused, Clarke complied.

“We don’t have to try fancy new things, Lex,” she said, her words slightly muffled by a pillow. “I really like the tried and tested things we already do.”

“Shh.”

It was easier to reconfigure her plan when Clarke wasn’t looking at her. Lexa straddled Clarke’s thighs and took a moment for herself. She’d suffered catastrophic failure on the first two stages of this mission, but she was determined to see the final stage achieve lift-off. (For a moment, she pondered the possible association between having had a phallus inches away from her face for a few minutes and a subsequent tendency toward rocket ship metaphors. It seemed high.)

“Just relax,” she said, not quite sure if she was telling herself or Clarke.

She had to lift up slightly to get to her bedside table, but Clarke remained where she was which meant at least one of them was listening to her. It let Lexa gather the things she needed – lube, gloves, a condom, scissors – and lay them out on the bed without feeling self-conscious about not being more seductive about the whole thing. She should have lit a candle or two. Maybe thirty.

Maybe she hadn’t thought through all of the aspects of her hastily constructed plan, but Lexa was adaptable. She didn’t have dental dams, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t Martha Stewart one. All it took was a snip of the scissors through the ring of the unrolled condom and halfway through to the middle, and the latex unfolded in a properly serviceable rectangle.

“This is going to be cold,” she said apologetically, even as she snapped on her gloves. Beneath her, Clarke shifted, straining to look back over her shoulder, likely aware of just what that meant.

“Lex?”

“Shh.”

She dabbed just a hint of lube against Clarke’s opening before patting the makeshift dental dam into place with more care and precision than it probably needed.

“What…” Clarke began before trailing off in a moan as Lexa shifted down the bed so that she could sink her teeth into the curve of Clarke’s ass with ease.

She’d intended to take her time. Engage in a bit of foreplay, as it were, but Clarke had been so patient and there was something about seeing her face down on the bed that made it hard for Lexa to control herself. It was how she found herself with black-gloved hands cupped around Clarke’s ass, pulling her cheeks apart so that Lexa could run her tongue over her hole with ease.

Above her, Clarke yelped.

“Is this okay?”

Clarke nodded vigorously, hands fisted into the sheets. “Yes. Yes! Fuck. This is so okay.”

It was more than enough to reassure Lexa. She settled back into her task, pleased both with how pleased Clarke seemed to be and with what she now realized was an ingenious modification to her plan. She was building up her confidence, deploying her tongue for close contact work in a way that was at least vaguely familiar (and damn all those military-themed porn clips she’d watched for instructional purposes). True, there were quite a few differences between having her tongue work its way through a hot, wet pussy and having her tongue work against the delicate pucker of Clarke’s hole, but the skills were at least transferrable enough that she didn’t feel like a total neophyte. It helped that every swipe of her tongue or delicate drag of her teeth brought about a squirm or a moan or a gasp. After all, it wasn’t that she had exactly reached a state of heightened confidence yet, no matter that she was building up to it, so feedback was helpful. Feedback she didn’t even have to ask for was even more so.

By the time she dipped her tongue inside, she was a little worried that Clarke was literally going to climb up the wall. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the rapid movement of Clarke’s hand, detaching from its firm grip on the sheets to dart under her body, and Lexa pulled back with a scowl.

“Clarke,” she said warningly.

Clarke froze, looking over her shoulder with delightful, dazed confusion. “I’m so close,” she said. “ _Please_.”

And it wasn’t that Lexa wanted to deny Clarke. It was simply that she had formed a picture in her head of how this was going to go and she wasn’t going to let Clarke’s need to actually reach completion fuck with that.

“No,” she said decisively, peeling away the rectangle of latex and leaning over to drop it in the bedside trash can. Clarke looked at her as if betrayed and whimpered, and it sounded so mournful that Lexa almost changed her mind. But no. Enough of working her way up to things. She was going to _succeed_.

It took more than one repetition of her curt directive that Clarke should reposition herself on the edge of the bed before Clarke actually managed the wherewithal to move, but it seemed that the promise of possible relief was enough to rouse her from her temporary pit of despair. She swallowed hard when Lexa slid down so that her knees were buried in the soft rug, putting her between Clarke’s spread thighs, and looked down with the expression of someone who has seen something holy and was just barely managing to keep it together.

When Lexa coated two fingers with lube and pushed them into Clarke with no further preparation, Clarke made a noise that was breathy and wanting that Lexa felt roll down her spine in a wave of heat. Even if Clarke’s cock was no less daunting this time, the task was. At the very least, the specter of failure was much fainter, given that Clarke looked like she would lose all control even if the only thing Lexa did was lean forward and breathe on her. It gave Lexa the space for experimentation – for example, she’d felt the ripple of veins when she’d had Clarke in her hand but she’d never taken the time to trace one with her tongue, feeling it pulse against her. She’d never consciously devoted herself to dragging her tongue over the tip of Clarke’s cock, or pressing wet, sucking kisses against it. She’d certainly never done so while pumping her fingers into Clarke – and really, she should have used her left hand because her right was beyond sore and on into throbbing.

“Lexa, I… I’m…”

Clarke couldn’t seem to get the words out, and when Lexa looked up, it was to see Clarke looking down at her, lip drawn between her teeth, eyes helpless, and one hand cupping her own breast like a lifeline while the other was buried in the sheets but on the verge of losing the battle to support her.

She gave a little nod and very deliberately sealed her mouth around the tip of Clarke’s cock, tongue already lapping at the freely flowing precum. It was a bit startling when the first splash of Clarke’s orgasm filled her mouth – not that she wasn’t familiar with the taste of Clarke’s cum, but she’d never experienced it at velocity – but given the way Clarke slumped back bonelessly, she assumed she’d recovered admirably.

She’d already disposed of her gloves and put away the lube and scissors by the time Clarke stirred from where she’d collapsed onto the mattress, the occasional twitch reassuring Lexa that she was still breathing.

“I’m going to get some more ice for my hand,” Lexa said, leaning over Clarke to give her a long, slow kiss which Clarke managed to return weakly. “And honestly, Clarke, do you really think I’d do that for any of the knothead Alphas in my program?” She rolled her eyes, because no.

She realized she was smiling as she pulled ice from the freezer. Correction – she wasn’t smiling. She was smirking. Gloating maybe, because yeah, she was proud. Lexa could admit that to herself. Her girlfriend was possibly incapable of movement and she’d done that.

It was maybe undercut a moment later by her yelp of surprise when arms wrapped around her waist from behind.

“Hey baby,” Clarke said, voice low and scratchy as she hooked her chin over Lexa’s shoulder. “How’s your hand?”

She let Clarke lead her over to one of the chairs at the small table that doubled as an eating space and workspace, touched by the way Clarke’s brow was furrowed as she took in the bruise spreading across the knuckle of Lexa’s middle finger. The skin wasn’t broken but there was a little bit of swelling, and Clarke – wearing only an unzipped hoodie and a sinfully short pair of boyshorts – bustled around gathering together supplies in a way that made Lexa feel warm inside.

“I can’t believe you punched him,” she said with a sigh as she knelt down in front of Lexa, drawing an alcohol pad over her knuckles just in case, even though there was no blood to be seen. She laid a thick piece of gauze across Lexa’s knuckles before carefully positioning a baggie of ice and wrapping it all with red self-adhesive wrap until it was secure.

And then she drew Lexa’s panties down over her hips, drew her legs over her shoulders, and proceeded to show her appreciation for Lexa’s bloodthirsty ways.

\------

Lexa looked at Anya out of the corner of her eye, unable to do anything about the blush flaming across her cheeks. At the very least, she’d already come by the time Anya stumbled in the front door after her shift at the gym to find her with Clarke’s tongue still between her legs and Lexa’s wrapped hand wound in Clarke’s hair. And, she’d been wearing a tee shirt, so it wasn’t as if her sister had caught her both _in flagrante_ and completely naked, but still…

She’d had to catch Clarke before she could scramble to her feet, keeping her in place long enough for Clarke to remember to reposition Lexa’s panties and to zip up her hoodie so that they could keep their flashing to a minimum.

“So,” Anya said finally, breaking the tense silence that had fallen after Clarke had finally gotten up off of her knees, “I don’t want to know if it’s some weird shit, but why is my sister injured?”

Lexa’s blush, improbably, deepened.

“She punched someone,” Clarke volunteered once it became clear that Lexa had been embarrassed into silence. At Anya’s immediately suspicious glare, she added, “Uh, not me. Someone other than me. But, for me. Unnecessarily.”

“The asshole deserved it.”

Clarke shrugged at Anya, a clear _what can you do_ if ever there was one.

Anya rolled her eyes. “Lexa, how many times have we been over this?” She stepped forward, taking Lexa’s wrapped hand between her own. “Hit with the meat of your palm. It does the job just as well, and you’re far less likely to break a knuckle. Or, if they really deserved it, use your elbow. That’ll leave a mark. None of this bare-knuckled brawling shit. You know how to fight. Fuck’em up, but safety first.”

At Clarke’s nonplussed stare, Anya smirked. “As if I wouldn’t teach my baby sister how to fight.”

“I thought she did cardio kickboxing at your gym,” Clarke said, eyes wide. “ _Cardio_ kickboxing.”

“Well, yeah, but with heavy bags.” She gave Clarke a solid slug to the shoulder. “You should drop by sometime. I’ll show you around. Let you take a class. You might like it. Or, you could come watch Lexa tear it up. Apparently that kind of thing does it for you.”

“Anya,” Lexa whined.

“What? Tell me what other take-away there is from walking in on you on a dining room chair, for fuck’s sake, with your girlfriend on her knees for you.” Anya took a moment to stare at the piece of furniture in question. “You know you’re going to have to wipe that down, right?”

And, to Clarke, “I’m glad she figured out her shit, because as traumatizing as that was, it was probably less traumatizing seeing you go down on my baby sister than it would have been if it’d been someone else.”

Lexa’s eyes narrowed irritably. “Can we stop talking about this?”

“If you don’t want me talking about the sex I just saw you having, maybe you should have taken half a minute to relocate. Forethought, Lex. It’s your friend.”

“Hey,” Clarke said soothingly, reaching out for Lexa’s uninjured hand and twining their fingers together. “I’ll make you a deal, Anya. You stop talking about it and keep this to yourself, and I’ll keep what I know to myself.”

Anya regarded Clarke suspiciously. “What are you talking about, Clarke?”

Clarke shrugged nonchalantly. “I think you know what I’m talking about.”

Lexa watched in fascination as an unprecedented array of emotions marched across Anya’s face – distrust, unease, discomfort, fear, skepticism, and finally, acceptance.

“You have yourself a deal, Griffin,” she said gruffly.

\------

Lexa only remembered to ask when she was close to sleep, Clarke curled behind her in a warm, sleepy embrace.

“What’s Anya’s big secret?” she asked, running her fingers along the arm Clarke had wrapped around her waist.

Behind her, Clarke laughed. “I have no idea. It stood to reason there’d be something, though.”

Lexa twisted around to give her a soft, lazy kiss. “I may have to reconsider my assessment of your ability to be devious,” she said, nuzzling her face into Clarke’s neck.

Clarke squirmed against her with pleasure. “Nah, baby. I’m pretty sure you have me figured out.”


	6. Lexa turns celebratory drinks into Prom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lexa turns celebratory drinks into Prom.
> 
> Also, I have jumped the shark. This is _sappy_. I don't even know what happened to me. I mean, there are song lyrics involved. If you're interested, [song one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ5BXfXUYwM), [song two](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI8PNsDveco), and [song three](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kag0TsZzxpw). This is embarrassing for all of us.

Lexa was tipsy.

From somewhere beneath her, Clarke sighed affectionately. “No, Lexa, you’re drunk." 

Correction: Lexa was tipsy and voicing the fact. It hadn’t been her intention. In fact, she wouldn’t even be out if it wasn’t for Anya’s good news, but she couldn’t _not_ celebrate her sister’s success.

“General manager,” Anya had said proudly, a smug look on her face and a thumb hitching back to point at herself. “It’s real world experience, Lexa. It’s another step closer to being ready to have my own gym.”

So, Lexa let herself be talked into celebratory shots which turned into multiple rounds of celebratory shots which turned into her, tipsy and draped across Clarke’s lap. And Clarke, who had managed to lose her fake ID and who hadn’t thought it worth the effort to try to replace it with her birthday only a few weeks away, was a _sober_ Clarke.

“Clarke. _Clarke_.”

“Hmm?”

“I don’t know if you know this, Clarke, but I don’t get tipsy very often.”

“I did know that, actually.”

Lexa nodded solemnly. “Of course you did. You know a lot about me. You pay attention, Clarke. You care.” She wound a blonde curl around her finger and grinned at Clarke’s slight frown. Even her frowns were lovely, she decided, as she leaned forward to kiss the wrinkle that settled between Clarke’s eyebrows. “I care too, Clarke, but I’m not as good at it as you are.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Lexa nodded solemnly, drawing her fingers down the side of Clarke’s face as if she could map the skin to memory. “Did you even know, Clarke? I bet you didn’t.”

“That you care about me?” Clarke tightened her hold on Lexa’s waist which helped tremendously with the slight sliding sensation she’d been feeling. “You punched someone in the face for me. It seemed like a clue.”

“I would do it again, Clarke.” Lexa narrowed her eyes and scanned the bar, because she was willing to demonstrate, right that very second if possible.

When their eyes met again, Clarke’s were soft. “Yeah,” she said, leaning forward to press a reassuring kiss to the curve of Lexa’s jaw, “you have been known to get feisty.”

“Clarke, I would punch so many people in the face for you.”

Clarke smiled, and Lexa considered tracing the contours of it with her lips. It was just… Clarke was so _pretty_ , and this smile was a small, shy thing. This was Clarke smiling at her – for her – and she wanted some way to keep it. “You’re saying my name a lot. Did you know that?”

“I did know that, Clarke. I like your name, because it belongs to you.”

The table jostled, distracting her from her intense study of Clarke’s lips, and she looked over with a glare to see Anya settling into a chair.

“Is she drunk already?” Anya asked, rolling her eyes because the answer was apparent in the bright sheen of Lexa’s eyes. “Lightweight. Head’s up, she’s a sappy drunk. Don’t let her make any new friends or there’ll be tears when it’s time to go.”

Lexa leaned closer to her girlfriend and attempted to whisper. “Clarke, did you know my sister is going to own her own gym one day? She has an MBA. Don’t be fooled. She’s not as dumb as she looks.”

Clarke’s laugh rumbled through her pleasantly.

\------

“Oh, fuck. Who let her loose on the jukebox? Griffin, weren’t you watching her?”

Lexa didn’t really care what Anya thought. She’d never appreciated the genius that was Lexa’s taste in music, and if she didn’t want to listen to her diligently chosen selections, then she should have made a move first.

“She does what she likes,” she heard Clarke say, her voice a mix of gentle and proud. “No one holds her back.”

Lexa nodded to herself, because Clarke was right. No one could hold her back, especially not Clarke. Clarke did the opposite. Clarke elevated her.

She was in so much trouble when it came to Clarke Griffin.

There were catcalls and whistles as she pulled Clarke out onto the dance floor, but Lexa couldn’t bring herself to give a single fuck. She was going to dance with her girlfriend to every single one of the songs she’d loaded on the jukebox. _Every. Single. One._ She was going to wrap her arms around Clarke, tuck her face into the crook of her neck, and sway together with her until they kicked them out.

A blush dusted Clarke’s cheeks when Lexa settled her hands on Clarke’s hips, a hint of pressure urging Clarke to follow the rhythm she’d set. They settled into it easily, and Lexa smiled. Clarke felt so good against her, the soft press of her breasts and the sure pressure of her hands nothing short of _perfect_.

“ _You’re just too good to be true_ ,” she sang along with the words of the first song she’d selected, sliding her hands around to Clarke’s back. “ _Can’t take my eyes off of you..._ ”

“Lexa,” Clarke said, voice half breathless whine and half longing.

Lexa pressed a smile into the soft skin of Clarke’s neck, the words of the song muffled against flesh as she traced a path up until her lips were brushing against Clarke’s ear. “ _I need you baby, and if it's quite all right, I need you baby, to warm the lonely nights. I love you baby, trust in me when I say okay. Oh pretty baby, don't let me down I pray. Oh pretty baby, now that I've found you stay. And let me love you. Oh baby let me love you, oh baby._ ”

Clarke shivered against her and Lexa tightened her grip. As the song wound down, she felt something antsy in Clarke. It was a tension, as if Clarke was ready to pull free, and so Lexa tightened her grip even further.

“Don’t you want to dance, Clarke?” she asked, slipping her fingers under the hem of Clarke’s henley and tracing her way to the dip of Clarke’s spine. “I want to dance.”

“Yeah,” Clarke said, her voice so soft that Lexa had to strain to hear it. “I do.”

Lexa leaned back and smiled at her. “Good, because I picked a lot of songs. Like, a lot. I want to dance with you to all of them.”

There was a second of silence and then Lexa’s next song began. Clarke pulled back in surprise, but Lexa  simply slid her hands further up Clarke’s back and changed the way her hips were rolling against Clarke in a way that was better suited to the song. It was maybe something she wouldn’t normally do in front of her sister, Clarke’s friends, or really, people in general, but Clarke had further unbuttoned the front of her henley long before they’d arrived, and what was already a deep vee moved from teasing to borderline indecent. If Lexa had flipped past the song and immediately flashed to a mental image of grinding against her girlfriend while surreptitiously enjoying all of that cleavage, it wasn’t her fault. It was Clarke’s. All Clarke’s.

“This song is about sex, Clarke,” she said, wanting to make sure that they both understood exactly why it had made it onto her playlist.

“I, uh… I know,” Clarke said, and sounded a bit breathless. “It’s kind of a tonal shift from the last one, but…”

Lexa’s hands slid down to Clarke’s ass, and Clarke apparently forgot whatever it was she was going to say.

“Oral sex.” Lexa felt compelled to point that out. “Like when you suck my cock. Or, when I suck yours.”  She readjusted her grip and brought her teeth down on Clarke’s pulse point, because it’d been teasing her all night. It was only half covered by the soft, charcoal gray of Clarke’s henley, and Lexa wanted to taste the skin against her tongue, feel it break under her teeth.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Clarke moaned, and Lexa felt the words vibrate against her lips. She smiled against the tickle of it before digging her teeth in again, sucking hard against the flesh because she needed Clarke _marked_. “Lexa…”

Lexa drew her lips up along Clarke’s neck. “Your birthday is in a few weeks, Clarke. I’ve been thinking that maybe what I’ll give you is anything you want. Would you like that? For me to do whatever you say? Or would you rather have it the other way around?”

It occurred to Lexa that what she really wanted to do was kiss Clarke. She’d been planning on it earlier, when Anya had interrupted them, and it wasn’t that she’d forgotten. She’d simply gotten distracted. Now, she was focused, and she remembered, and she slid her hands up Clarke’s back to tangle in her hair and pull her close. She loved the way Clarke’s lips parted under hers, and the way Clarke’s fingers dug into her hips and pulled her in tight. She loved the brush of Clarke’s breasts against her own as they continued to move against one another, bodies in sync and Clarke’s thigh pressing between her own, Clarke starting to harden against her.

“Holy shit,” she thought she heard someone say. “Is that your sister? She’s always been so, I don’t know… _reserved_?” A pause, a happy laugh. “Get it, Griff.”

When Lexa pulled away from the kiss to catch her breath, she saw that they’d been joined on the dance floor by Anya and Raven. “Hey,” she said, extracting a hand from Clarke’s hair long enough to wave. Anya glared at her but Raven smiled and waved back before kissing Anya’s glare away. “They’re so cute together.”

“Anya was wrong.” Clarke’s eyes were so bright and so soft, and Lexa couldn’t stop looking into them. “You’re not a sappy drunk. You’re a handful.”

And then the song changed over. “No, she was right. You’re literally nothing but sap right now, Lexa.”

“Shh,” Lexa hushed her. “I’m dancing with my girlfriend.” And she laid her head against Clarke’s shoulder, wrapped her arms around her waist, and swayed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another couple join them – was that Octavia and Lincoln?

“Do you know this song, Clarke?” Lexa murmured against her, wrapping her arms around Clarke’s waist and pulling her in close. “My parents listened to all this old music all the time. They’d… they’d dance, Clarke. Like we’re doing. Anya and I used to pretend it was so embarrassing, but it wasn’t. It was sweet. They’d been together for years, and they still loved each other like that.” She nipped at the bruise she’d laid over Clarke’s pulse point. “I’d like to have that, what they have.”

Clarke swallowed hard, skin jerking under Lexa’s lips.

“Lexa…”

“Shh, Clarke,” Lexa whispered, giving the mark she’d made a soothing lick before pulling her head up so that her lips were by Clarke’s ear again. “This is my favorite part. _Don't anyone wake me, if it's just a dream, cause she's the best thing ever happened to me. All you fellows, you can look all you like. But this girl you see, she's leavin' here with me tonight._ ”

She wasn’t entirely certain, but it sounded like Clarke whimpered.

“You’re going to kill me, Lexa,” she said, head falling to rest on Lexa’s shoulder.

Lexa was pretty sure she knew why. “I know, baby. I can feel you. You’re so hard. Do you want me to take care of that for you?”

This time, she was sure Clarke whimpered. “No,” she said, voice oddly strangled. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Okay,” Lexa said, pressing a kiss to the curve of Clarke’s jaw, “because I would. I would not have before I met you, Clarke, but I will. For you. Do you want me to use my…”

Clarke’s hands tightened on her hips, as if she couldn’t help herself. “Please don’t say anything else.”

Lexa nodded, because she’d rather dance than talk too.

\------

Lexa was torn from her thorough examination of just how those jeans made Clarke’s ass look (verdict: delicious) when she felt a shoulder bump into hers. She whipped around with a scathing rebuff already on the edge of her tongue when she saw it was Raven. Raven, who was grinning at her with an almost scarily wide grin.

“You should come out drinking with us more often.”

There were several types of ways in which she had interacted with Raven. She was her sister’s girlfriend, after all, and her girlfriend’s roommate. Needless to say, their lives were rather thoroughly entwined by their relationships with the people that were important to both of them. Their own relationship was primarily comprised of short, shallow but generally pleasant conversations, because Raven was _Anya’s girlfriend_ and _Clarke’s roommate_ but Lexa’s acquaintance, and she knew more about her from stories told to her than by stories they shared together.

“Really,” Raven said with another playful nudge of the shoulder. “You’re a highly entertaining drunk.”

“I don’t get drunk often.” Lexa was pleased with the words, because she was pretty sure none of them were slurred. “It’s not a good idea.”

“Because you turn celebratory drinks into the Prom?”

“Because it’s dangerous.” Lexa frowned. That felt like a conversational misstep. Her goal was a short, shallow but generally pleasant conversation with Raven Reyes, connected to her through many various strands that led back to her only indirectly. Her goal was not… whatever that was.

Thankfully Raven seemed to know how to keep to the goal, because her eyes were sparkling mischievously and her smile was half a smirk. “Dangerous?”

Lexa nodded, her eyes finding her girlfriend once again. She was chatting with Bellamy, something that looked far too serious for a happy night of celebratory drinks, and she idly wondered just what he’d done this time. “Not all Alphas are as trustworthy as Clarke.”

Beside her, Raven stiffened. “Oh.”

She could hear the concern, the fear of just what that might mean, and waved it off. “I learned quickly, and Anya was always there to keep me safe.” Clarke had her hand on Bellamy’s forearm and was looking up at him, both supportive and concerned, and Lexa smiled. “And now I have Clarke. She’ll take care of me.”

“Yeah.” Raven’s voice was an audible, teasing smirk. “I’ve heard all about how she takes care of you.”

Lexa rolled her eyes at the insinuation. “That was supposed to be a secret.”

“As if Anya could keep a secret from me.”

“It was actually really embarrassing.” Lexa leaned closed to Raven, who mirrored the move with a mischievous smile. “I used to make fun of Anya so much. When she’d come back from dates with you, I’d ask her how babysitting went.”

“She told me,” Raven said dryly. “She was a huge fan of the jokes.”

“No, she wasn’t.”

Raven sighed. “You’re too drunk for sarcasm, apparently.”

“Do you think that’s why she sent Clarke to me? So I couldn’t make fun of her anymore?”

“I like the way you make it sound like Anya was Clarke’s pimp.”

Lexa considered that. “But she kind of was?”

“I don’t think she thought you’d actually sleep with Clarke.” Raven shook her head fondly. “I think she was in it for the potential hilarity, and maybe she also thought you needed something to take your focus off how nervous you were about the whole thesis defense situation. I’m pretty sure she thought Clarke was going to come skulking back to the apartment with a highly entertaining story about how you’d rejected her in some intensely embarrassing fashion. Only, Clarke didn’t come back and Anya started to get nervous and it was hilarious.”

“I did not send her away,” Lexa confirmed seriously, then lowered her voice conspiratorially. “We had sex.”

“Trust me, I know. Clarke showed up the next morning looking ridiculously well fucked and extremely happy, and Anya nearly had an aneurysm. I know she plays it off like that was her plan all along, but it was not.” Raven said the last bit with so much amusement that Lexa grinned reflexively. “She kept muttering about how Clarke had defiled her baby sister.”

Lexa nodded, because it was true. There had been defilement, and it had been amazing. Shared household surfaces had been profaned (and later disinfected). Desecration had fucking abounded.

She snickered, out of synonyms but still highly amused with herself.

“Raven,” she finally managed, looking at the other girl as seriously as was possible given the way Raven’s face contrasted sharply with the vortex spinning violently behind her, “you should bring Anya flowers. She deserves them. Don’t wait until you fuck up. Do it whenever. Just because.”

“Oh, yeah?” Raven asked, and Lexa was vaguely aware of the fact that Raven was maybe making fun of her a little. “You think she’s a flowers kind of girl?”

“I don’t know. No one’s ever given her any.” Lexa paused, looked at Raven seriously. “She said she might like them if she liked the person giving them to her, and she really likes you, Raven.”

Raven’s eyes glittered with mirth. “Do tell. What’s she said?”

“She doesn’t say much.” Lexa shrugged. “I just know. When she met you, she was smitten. She was a smitten kitten.”

Lexa giggled, then clamped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide. She was not a _giggler_. She did not _giggle_.

“Then I guess she and Clarke have that in common.”

Lexa nodded, then took a moment to consider the words. “What do you mean? Is Clarke smitten with you too?”

She pushed back, chair scraping across the floor, because she had thoughts about this assertion. Active thoughts.

Raven’s hand on her shoulder steadied her. “Hey, whoa. Easy, tiger. I’m pretty sure Clarke forgot other people even existed after she met you.”

“You’re pretty, Raven, but you’re silly.” Lexa looked over to where Clarke was still deep in discussion with Bellamy and bit her bottom lip thoughtfully. “Tell Clarke to come back. I want to dance some more. And, I want to ask her if she’s smitten with you. If she is, fair warning. I’ll tell Anya. She deserves to know. You can’t have two kittens, Raven. It’s not fair to her. She should be your only kitten.”

“You sit,” Raven said, and Lexa thought maybe Raven was laughing at her again. She promised herself she’d remember and… do something about it. Later. “No more dancing. I don’t think Anya can handle more of you dancing. I’m pretty sure Clarke can’t either.”

Though, upon consideration, Lexa already knew what song she wanted to play next.

“Lexa… Shit. Griff! Come get your girl.”

She was flicking idly through the albums glowing on the wall-mounted screen when she felt arms wrap around her from behind.

“Baby,” Clarke said, voice low and gruff and soft, and Lexa practically melted into it, “come on. I’m taking you home.”

On the one hand, there was dancing. Clarke pressed close to her, wrapped up in her arms. On the other, there was home. A bed. Clarke beneath her, looking up at her with those blue, blue eyes.

She turned slowly until she was facing Clarke, whose smile was almost shy. “You can take me home, Clarke Griffin,” she said, and tasted that shy smile for herself.

\------

Lexa awoke to regrets.

“Make it less bright,” she said, hoping that maybe the universe was in an accommodating mood.

It was not.

A contented, sleepy sound came from behind her. Lexa connected it to the arm draped loosely over her waist and the warm body curled into her from behind, and took her regrets, multiplied them by ten, and factored in an infinite amount of embarrassment. She remembered lifting her arms so that Clarke could switch out the shirt she’d been wearing for something soft, and Clarke on the floor, tugging at her shoes. She remembered trying to pull Clarke against her, and fastening her mouth to the dark stain of a bruise she’d left at the base of her neck, and Clarke whimpering and panting before managing to pull free.

She remembered Clarke kissing her softly, whispering, “ _Not tonight, baby. Let’s just sleep, okay_ ” and her own pleading, whining, “ _Clarke_.”

She’d been needy and insistent and it was _mortifying_.

She considered locking herself in the bathroom and never emerging again. With a little bit of cooperation from Anya, she could live there indefinitely.

With extreme care, she slid out from under Clarke’s arm. Tumbling to the floor in an ungainly heap was a very real possibility as she inched one foot down toward the floor and then the other before levering herself into a standing position with a surprising show of core strength, but she managed.

Water, first, then she’d brush her teeth and shower. Then, perhaps voluntary transfer to another continent.

It was a relief to exit the shower to find her bed empty, because it meant at least another blessed minute of reprieve.

“Lexa,” she heard, instantly shattering the illusion. “Breakfast!”

And crap, but Clarke had made her an omelet. It had all sorts of vegetables and melted cheese, stuffed so full it couldn’t quite fold over on itself. There were potatoes on the side, cut into slightly irregular cubes and browned, and Clarke looked ridiculously proud of herself. Lexa couldn’t take it and retreat to blissful solitude. Not with the way Clarke had arranged it on the table with napkins and silverware and a glass of cranberry juice. So she sat there, the back of her tee shirt growing increasingly damp from her still shower-wet hair, offering Clarke awkward smiles to let her know how pleased she was.

Clarke let her get away with it.

Correction: Clarke let her get away with it until after the dishes were in the sink, and then she took Lexa by the hand and led her gently to the bedroom. She settled onto the bed, back against the wall, and coaxed Lexa into her lap. Lexa settled uneasily, looking at everything but the way Clarke was looking at her and wondered if she could feign a nap as a way to continue her streak of silence.

“So, you got a little drunk last night,” Clarke said, sliding her feet up so her knees were bent. It pressed the tops of her thighs against the curve of Lexa’s ass, leaving Lexa in a veritable Clarke cocoon.

Lexa blushed.

Clarke’s hands settled on her waist with barely there pressure, a thumb brushing over her hip. The touch was so light it tickled through the cotton of her shirt and Lexa had to fight against an impulse to squirm.

“Anything you said or did, or think you said or did…” Clarke paused, shook her head. “I’m not going to hold you to anything, Lexa.”

She looked up to find Clarke looking back at her with an impossibly soft expression, and wondered what sin she was being absolved of in Clarke’s eyes.

“If you were going to,” she asked, beset by dangerous curiosity, “what would it be? What would you hold me to?”

The deflection was clearly visible before Clarke even moved to make it. “Guess what I learned about you last night?” she teased, giving Lexa a crooked smile. “Apparently you can’t be trusted with a jukebox.”

Although a significant portion of her wanted to let Clarke sweep away the tenuous uncertainty of whatever it was that was underlying the moment, she couldn’t. Behind Clarke’s smile was the way her eyes were just a little bit guarded and her shoulders just a little stiff.

As if she was protecting herself, Lexa mused, but from what?

Lexa decided to treat the deflection as a clue. What had she done? She’d wandered over to the jukebox and flicked through albums, punching in numbers amid swirling thoughts of Clarke. She’d pulled her girlfriend out onto the dancefloor and kept her there, pressed in close. She’d whispered promises and sang along to lyrics with an earnestness that made her blush in the light of day and made her mark on Clarke so that everyone could see.

The mark was… well. Lexa allowed that she had certainly fulfilled her intent, whatever it might have been. The bruise spread like a puddle of ink across the base of Clarke’s neck, the deep, dark blue of its center fading out to purple along the edges, and interrupted by an occasional prick of black where teeth had apparently dug in mercilessly.

It was not subtle.

“I’m so sorry,” Lexa said, reaching out to trace her fingers along the outline of it.

Clarke’s head fell back and she whimpered, soft and vulnerable, as Lexa brushed against it. “Don’t be,” she said, voice rough.

A little more pressure, Lexa thought, and she would have given Clarke a mating bite there on the dancefloor. She would have… _Oh_. She would have sang songs about love with her lips pressed to Clarke’s flesh and dug teeth into the skin above her pulse point with a force just shy of claiming. She would have held her intimately close, unashamedly, for all to see.

Not would have. _Did_.

“Do you like it?” she asked hesitantly, thumb sweeping across the bruise. “Being marked as mine?”

Clarke’s head was still tilted back, eyes closed, and Lexa thought she saw the faintest sheen of tears dampening her lashes. “Very much so.”

She licked her lips nervously. “Would you want me to…”

Clarke’s eyes snapped open and her nostrils flared, and for a moment, Lexa thought she was angry. “Not until you mean it. Not unless you meant it.”

It took her a long moment to realize Clarke wasn’t angry. She was _scared_.

“That’s not something I want to share with someone who’s not sure I’m the one,” she said, running a soothing hand up Lexa’s back. “Not again.”

 _Fucking Finn Collins_ , Lexa wanted to snarl. And then she wondered if someday, someone else would be where she was, thinking _Fucking Lexa Woods_.

She found the thought distinctly unpleasant.

“Clarke,” she said softly, her hand drifting down to rest over the other girl’s heart.

For a moment, Clarke looked at her with such yearning that Lexa felt it in her bones. A moment later, she seemed to shake it off, any hint of it buried under a playful smirk.

“So, you like to dance, hmm?” Clarke teased lightly, hands once again settling onto Lexa’s hips. “We should do it more often.”

Lexa kissed her, soft and slow, hands cupping Clarke’s jaw. Clarke made a muffled noise of surprise before sinking into it, and Lexa thought of all the things she could have said. _I will never hurt you, not if I can help it. I could fall in love with you. I think I already have._

She wondered if Clarke could taste the words on her lips.

\------

Lexa was staring at a blank television screen when Anya threw open the door, stumbling in behind a massive flower arrangement. She was staring at a blank television screen because she couldn’t manage to think of anything other than the day before, when she’d kissed Clarke until her lips were sore. The kisses had stayed unhurried, and even when she felt Clarke grow hard against her, the pace hadn’t changed. She’d stood, shucked off her shorts, and pulled down Clarke’s boxers. She’d settled into her lap again, hips rocking so that she was painting the length of Clarke’s cock with herself until finally she sank down onto it slowly. And then she was full of Clarke and kissing Clarke, her thumb pressed against the mark she’d made, and they’d moved together like they had all the time in the world.

Her lips were still tender to the touch. Other parts of her were tender too, like her heart.

“Those are pretty,” she said absently.

“Yeah, they showed up for me at work today,” Anya said, scowling as she slid the vase an inch to the left and then a half an inch back, apparently unsure where the exact center of the countertop was located. “You didn’t have anything to do with that, did you?”

Lexa blinked slowly, mind still half buried in sweet, deep kisses. “Didn’t you read the card?”

Anya glared at her. “Of course I read the card.”

“Oh, well, I didn’t send them.”

“I know you didn’t send them.”

She had a feeling Anya was trying to convey agitation or anger, but it was completely undercut by the way an unruly blossom of lavender waxflower wrapped through with English ivy was brushing against her cheek.

“Did Mom send them?”

Anya abandoned her animus in the face of Lexa’s clear confusion. “No, Mom didn’t send them. Raven did.”

Lexa couldn’t help her goofy smile. “That’s so sweet.”

“With a card that reads, and I quote, ‘ _For my one and only kitten. I’m so proud of you. Love Raven_.’” Anya took a moment to roll her eyes. “So I ask you again, did you have anything to do with this?”

There was a vague memory swimming around, of maybe talking to Raven about how smitten Anya had been with her (and still was, though Lexa would never use the word to describe her sister in present tense as it seemed dangerous to her ongoing health and wellbeing). She _seemed_ to remember saying the word kitten in startling proximity to Anya’s name.

In the interests of personal safety, she gave her best impression of a wide-eyed innocent. “Not me.”

Anya’s disbelieving scowl prompted her to search out a segue.

“Don’t you like them?”

The scowl softened into something tender. Seeing it on her sister’s face seemed both incongruous and utterly right, and Lexa felt a pang of affection for her.

“Of course I like them,” Anya said gruffly, fingers tracing over the petal of a cream-colored rose. “I love them. They’re lovely.”

The question spilled out of her before she could stop it. “When you met Raven, did you know you would fall in love with her one day?”

“Of course not.” Anya tugged at a rose as if she was going to free it from the arrangement before thinking better of it and tucking it back in place with undue care. “I knew a lot of things, but I don’t think you can know that. Not really.”

“What did you know?”

“That she was funny. Interesting. Smart. Smoking hot. That I wanted her.”

“And when did you know you loved her?”

Anya shrugged, flicking a knowing grin in Lexa’s direction. “I knew when I knew.”

Lexa saw the look and ignored it. “You’re useless.”

“Maybe I’m just saving all my usefulness for something else. By the way, you’re having company tonight. I’m kicking Clarke out of the apartment so I can thank my girl for the flowers.” A satisfied grin snuck over Anya’s face. “It’s probably going to get loud.”

\-----

“Clarke!” Lexa screamed, legs clamped tight around Clarke’s head and hips levitating in mid-air as she gave herself over to a truly fantastic orgasm. It wasn’t one she’d particularly planned on having. As much as she loved sex with Clarke, and she did, her intent had been for them to settle in for a relaxing evening of dinner, Netflix, and some light cuddling. As it was, dinner had grown cold, Netflix was asking her if she was still watching, and Clarke was smiling up at her from between her legs.

“Come here,” she husked, grinning as Clarke clambered up into her lap. She wrapped a hand around her neck and pulled her down, kissing the taste of herself off Clarke’s lips before sliding her hand around to the front of Clarke’s chest and pushing gently. With a little bit of wiggling, she maneuvered herself so that she was in a half recline against the arm of the couch and Clarke wasn’t in danger of toppling off onto the floor; for a moment, she simply enjoyed the feel of Clarke straddling her hips.

And then she said _I want to watch you_ and shivered as Clarke dropped her full weight down on the cradle of her thighs in shock.

Clarke gripped her cock gingerly, as if ready to pull away should Lexa make even the slightest gesture to indicate that this wasn’t what she wanted, not really. Lexa had to close her hand over Clarke’s and guide it up and down her shaft, eyes locked with Clarke’s, before Clarke’s grip tightened. And then, well… Lexa brought her hands to her breasts, cupping them, pushing them up as if in offering, and she couldn’t even bring herself to feel bad about it. Clarke’s hand was moving with the careless rhythm of long familiarity and her eyes were watching Lexa with a tenderness perhaps not befitting the moment, and Lexa couldn’t stop smiling.

“I love you,” she said, before she could stop herself.

Clarke stiffened, blinked down at her, and collapsed.

“I love you, too,” Clarke murmured, kissing her lips, her cheek, her forehead, her hair. “Fuck, baby, your timing.” She laughed and kissed Lexa thoroughly. “I don’t even care. I’ve been in love with you for weeks. Months. Since I’ve known you. Since forever.”

“Clarke,” Lexa chided, wrapping her legs around Clarke’s waist loosely as the other girl settled more comfortably atop her.

“What? It’s true.” She grinned unabashedly. “It’s been killing me, not telling you. I’ve wanted to tell you every day. Every time I see you, I want to tell you how much I love you.”

It was a heady thought. “But you didn’t?”

Clarke pressed her lips to the base of Lexa’s throat, and left a trail of soft kisses that climbed the curve of her neck. “I had to hope you’d say it first. Anything else would have scared you away.” She glanced up, grinning. “You’re like a feral cat – just as likely to run away and hide as you are to let me show you affection.”

Lexa thought about being offended, but it was probably true. When Clarke drew her nose along the cut of Lexa’s cheekbone, she gave up any pretense of being upset.

“Not that you haven’t made it tough. Lexa, you _sang_ to me.” Clarke kissed her again, then pulled away with a sigh. “I melted into a stupid gay puddle and you were too drunk to notice.”

This, if true, was also true, so Lexa simply shrugged. She might have been responsible, but that didn’t mean she was going to let Clarke hold her accountable.

“And the next day you made love to me.”

That one she _had_ done, in retrospect.

“I’m surprised I’m still functioning.”

Lexa was surprised she herself was still functioning. She’d told Clarke she _loved_ her. She _meant_ it. Holy shit. _Holy shit._

“Are you okay?” Clarke was looking at her with concern, and Lexa realized she may have inadvertently forgotten to breathe for a little while.

_What did she do now?_

She kind of wished Anya was there.

“Clarke.” She was whispering, like a schoolgirl sharing a secret, but couldn’t help it. “We’re in love.”

Clarke smiled, wide and happy, and Lexa felt herself smiling in return.

“Yeah.” For a moment Clarke looked bashful, like the girl who had shown up on her doorstep all those months ago, nervously pulling up and down on her zipper. “We are.”

She was in _so_ much trouble when it came to Clarke Griffin.


	7. Happy Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and Lexa celebrate Clarke's birthday. Things you might find in this chapter: anal plugs, breast fucking, and a mirror. You are hereby warned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fiddled with this chapter forever and finally decided that, ready or not, it was time to hit publish.

“Why can’t I have both?” Clarke had asked her, a few days after they’d celebrated Anya’s promotion. Lexa didn’t even have to pretend that she didn’t know what Clarke was talking about, because she didn’t. Not that Clarke had believed her, at least at first.

“Are you taking it back?” Clarke had played at being horrified, though for all Lexa knew, a part of her actually was.

“Clarke, context.”

“Don’t you remember telling me what you were planning to give me for my birthday?”

It had registered with her, vaguely, along with the burn of a blush.

Clarke’s eyes had sparkled. “You, doing anything I ask. Me, doing anything you ask. You said I could pick one.” She’d shrugged and smirked so mischievously that it laid bare the hint of previously unearthed dimples. “But it’s my _birthday_ , Lexa.”

She’d sighed, her acquiescence a foregone conclusion.

\------

Lexa made rules. First, a system to check in and make sure everything was okay. There was no need to reinvent the wheel, she decided, so she adopted the first reasonable one she found online. Green, yellow, or red, she’d told Clarke, and made Clarke repeat to her what each would mean.

Clarke obliged dutifully if a little drolly. “Green means good to go, yellow means slow down, and red means stop.”

“And I won’t do anything to you that I wouldn’t be comfortable with letting you to do me.” Which, upon further thought, wasn’t entirely true. “Except anal. I’m sorry, Clarke, but you’re way too big.” A pause. “Don’t be smug.”

“I literally cannot be anything other than smug about that.” Clarke’s expression was a mix between fond, amused, and insufferably proud. “It’s coded into my DNA. You can’t say something to an Alpha about her cock being _way too big_ and not expect maximum smugness. You just made my day, baby.”

Lexa tried not to be annoyed, but it grew more difficult the longer that expression stayed on Clarke’s face.

“Moving on,” she muttered. “Do you want to know what I’m going to do?”

At the very least, Clarke’s expression shifted to one of confusion, so Lexa counted it as a win despite her girlfriend’s oddly scandalized tone. “You already know?”

Lexa shrugged, because why wouldn’t she already know? “I have a loose agenda.”

“Lexa, my birthday is still three days away. How can you have a ‘loose agenda’ of what you’re planning on doing to me in three days?”

How could she not, Lexa wondered? “Don’t you have a plan?”

Clarke shook her head, brows furrowed as if she was actually worried about Lexa. “No. I don’t.”

That was all well and good for Clarke, but Lexa was a _planner_. It was a _good thing_ she was a planner, or else this entire birthday ordeal would have crashed and burned. She’d been making decisions in advance since they’d reached a mutual understanding that this was going to be the way they’d celebrate. If she hadn’t, she couldn’t even imagine the inevitable debacle. Would they already have a hotel room? No. Would dinner be sorted? No. Would she have been able to do the appropriate research and internet purchasing? No. They’d have ended up snacking on potato chips and drinking whatever leftover alcohol Clarke could find in her cupboards, and they would have had sex and it probably would have been great, but it wouldn’t be _event_ sex.

Event sex didn’t happen without an _agenda_.

“Fine. I’ll make you a list.”

Clarke’s confusion was morphing into concern. “A list of what?”

“Things you might want to consider, assuming you want this to be a successful endeavor.”

“This isn’t an endeavor.” Clarke’s hands found Lexa’s cheeks, drawing and holding her attention. “This is my birthday, and it’s going to be amazing because I’m spending it with you.”

Lexa felt compelled to point out that they were actually discussing the night before Clarke’s birthday, which left open the possibility that her birthday could be amazing but the night before could fail spectacularly. They weren’t necessarily mutually exclusive events, but though she knew that her presence was key to the roll out of one of them, Lexa wasn’t convinced that simple physical proximity was enough to ensure this assumed amazingness.

“Seriously. Don’t stress out about this. We could hang around in the apartment eating potato chips in our sweatpants and I would be happy.”

Which was exactly what she was _trying_ to _avoid_ , Lexa seethed internally.

“I’ll make a list,” she reiterated firmly.

And Clarke, apparently knowing when retreat was the better option, nodded in resignation. “Sure. I’d love a list.”

\------

Lexa waited impatiently at the registration desk while Clarke stood idly behind her. She had the suspicion that if she turned around, she’d find Clarke looking at their assembled collection of baggage with bemusement, much as she’d looked at Lexa as Clarke had hauled them all down and stowed them away in the trunk of the car. And honestly, there weren’t that many bags. One for her. One for Clarke, which was just a duffle and shouldn’t even count, really. One with Clarke’s gifts. One with the various and sundry other things they might need. One with the dinner, snacks, and beverages Lexa had carefully packaged, just in case they didn’t feel like going out later because she was a grad student, and as much as she wanted to make this night wonderful for Clarke, she was already planning on room service for breakfast and her bank account didn’t stretch to cover more than that.

Baffled though she apparently was, Clarke had taken on the self-assigned task of carrying all of them at once, all by herself; Lexa had tried not to let her own amusement show as Clarke staggered stubbornly under the weight.

“You don’t understand,” Clarke had said, stepping up on the curb outside the hotel only to immediately become unbalanced and forced to step back down.

“No, I understand,” Lexa had answered dryly, rolling her eyes and clearly being anything but complimentary. “My big, strong Alpha refuses to be defeated by luggage or common sense.”

“You think you’re teasing me, but I’m choosing to take you seriously.” She’d grinned smugly. “I’m your _big, strong Alpha_. You admitted it. You can’t take it back.”

Not that Lexa would have regardless, because Clarke looked delighted and it _was_ (almost) her birthday.

Her nerves set in as they waited for the elevator. The clerk had assured her they had a good view and reassured her that they’d been given a king-sized bed and a room with a garden tub, but Lexa couldn’t help thinking that she should have done more. Maybe she should have taken the hit to her finances and booked a suite, or maybe she should have found a nicer hotel. Maybe she should have gone with a bed and breakfast, somewhere quaint and cozy and out of the city, where they could have munched on homemade granola and daintily sliced fresh fruit the morning after an evening of what she presumed was going to be quite enjoyable sexual debauchery – that all their fellow granola eaters would probably have overheard, what with it being a bed and breakfast. So, no, at least she’d been right about that one.

“You didn’t have to do this,” Clarke told her as they rode the elevator to their floor, “but I’m not going to lie. I’m feeling pretty special right now. This is the fanciest birthday I’ve ever had.”

So maybe Lexa suddenly felt a little proud of herself.

The bed was huge, and Clarke flopped down onto it immediately, bags abandoned, with her arms and legs spread wide as if she was going to try to make a snow angel in the duvet. She bounced right back up once she saw Lexa begin unpacking bags, but Lexa quelled Clarke’s need to help, or perhaps just her need to be nosy, with a sharp look. “You relax,” she said, putting things in order. “I’m going to go get some ice.”

The ice was for the champagne, but ended up scattered all over the floor.

“Clarke,” she said, acutely aware of how breathless she sounded. It was just that Clarke had apparently take advantage of the scant few minutes she’d been gone and was now wearing only a slightly oversized and completely unbuttoned black and white plaid flannel shirt and a pair of ridiculously short and ridiculously tight white boxer briefs and nothing else. She was on her knees on the now unmade bed, smirking, with her hair tumbling over her shoulders, and Lexa forgot the connection between her grip on the ice bucket and gravity and what the latter would do if she loosened the former.

Clarke’s tongue flicked out to lick the corner of her mouth in a move Lexa found unfairly provocative. “I’m tired of waiting.”

“It’s only been a few minutes,” she said weakly, deciding that the carpet had probably seen worse things than a little ice. It would be fine. It was fine. She wasn’t going to worry about it.

“I want to know what you’ve been planning.” Clarke’s primary response seemed to be to fiddle with the hem of her shirt and to look up at Lexa through her lashes, though Lexa was vaguely aware that there were also words. “I made sure I’m ready for anything you want, Lexa.”

 _Anything you want_ rattled around in Lexa’s head until she began to feel a tightness in her chest and realized she was panting. So, fine. If that was the way Clarke wanted to play it, Lexa could probably make some on-the-fly adjustments to her agenda.

“Close your eyes,” she said, _mostly_ unbothered by the crackle of ice under her foot. The request was strategic more than seductive, but from the smirk that had etched itself even deeper onto Clarke’s lips, Lexa figured the intent didn’t really matter.

She had things to do: two of the small, lined, metal trash cans pulled up beside the bed; a gift to retrieve; a bag of necessaries to unearth; and, her own clothes to shed. She’d brought lingerie – and the less said about that purchasing experience, the better (there had been a saleslady and the words _so what does your Alpha like, honey_ involved, and Lexa still _seethed_ ) – but it didn’t feel like the right time to be frantically trying to arrange herself, so she settled for a quick and functional disrobing.

“I have something for you,” she said, shooting for seductive but settling for just a little shy. “If you don’t like it, that’s fine. No pressure.”

A single blonde brow arched questioningly.

“You can open your eyes now,” Lexa said, crawling onto the mattress so that she was facing Clarke, on her knees so their faces were even. She was holding a neatly wrapped gift in a way that wasn’t entirely not awkward, heart already beating a mile a minute in anticipation.

“You didn’t have to,” Clarke said, taking the gift nonetheless. It was rectangular and not entirely dissimilar in shape to a hefty paperback book, and Lexa could tell by her expression that Clarke was puzzled. She shook it, tapped it, rattled it, and it was enough prevarication that Lexa was ready to tear it from her hands and rip it open if Clarke didn’t damn well do it herself.

“Just open it,” Lexa said, voice shaky with nerves. “And like I said, if you don’t want to, we don’t have to use it. I’m not going to be offended if you don’t like it. I just… I thought you might, but if you don’t, it’s absolutely okay.”

“Use it? Baby, what did you…” Clarke looked at her quizzically for a moment before apparently deciding that it’d be quicker to simply open the gift than to try to pry an answer out of Lexa, who was quickly talking herself into an anxiety attack, so she tore into the wrapping paper, shredding it with a single pull.

“You don’t like it,” Lexa concluded after a single second of silence, continuing to babble. “We can’t return it, exactly, and anyway, I already opened it up and washed it, but that doesn’t matter. We can just… I don’t know if it’s recyclable, but I can find out.”

“Lexa,” Clarke said softly, fingers digging into the box to pry it open, “shhh.”

With a hard swallow, Lexa tried to staunch the flow of words.

Clarke ran her fingers over the firm silicone of the anal plug she unexpectedly found herself holding, if the muted look of surprise on her face was any indication. “I… yeah. I want to try it,” she said hoarsely, looking up at Lexa with a grin that was only slightly tinged with astonished disbelief.

“Tonight?” Lexa asked with a bit more enthusiasm than she’d meant.

Clarke bit her lip and nodded at Lexa, a hint of mischief glinting in her eyes. It was not unappealing. “Mm-hmm. Guess that means you’re going first.”

She could have furthered the banter, Lexa knew, but didn’t have the patience for it. Instead, she wrapped her hands around the collar of Clarke’s shirt and pulled, nearly toppling them over as Clarke crashed into her.

“Fuck, I love you,” Clarke growled against her, hands sliding around Lexa’s waist a second before Lexa found her lips.

\------

Lexa could only be glad that Clarke had already pulled down the covers – she’d heard things about hotel duvets that she couldn’t unhear – because it meant she didn’t have to worry about them becoming tangled in the sheets when she pushed Clarke down onto the bed. The bruise she’d left on Clarke’s neck the night of Anya’s impromptu celebration had all but faded, and her first order of business was to rectify that. She didn’t like to dwell on what she’d done and what she was planning on doing again. After all, the massive, untidy signal of possession was undoubtedly gauche, but Clarke liked it and she liked the look of it on Clarke, so… whatever. She was going to do it with _conviction_ , and she wasn’t going to think too hard about it.

To that end, she drew Clarke’s hair away from her neck, settled herself between the spread of Clarke’s legs, and drew her tongue over the skin she planned to mark. Clarke’s fingers dug into her shoulders at the same time as her teeth dug into Clarke’s throat, and Lexa _reveled_ in it. She nipped and sucked and Clarke became a wild thing beneath her, heels digging into the mattress and hands slipping down the curve of Lexa’s spine to palm her ass greedily. Lexa couldn’t still the instinctive roll of her hips, her belly dragging along Clarke’s cloth-covered cock like a metronome even as she sucked the bruise back into being.

“Lexa,” Clarke moaned, and Lexa dug her teeth into Clarke’s skin, grip tight as she shook her head from side to side gently in a mock rebuke, because she could feel the tension in her and wanted _more_.

“Don’t you dare come,” she snarled, before fitting her lips to Clarke’s pulse point once more and sucking hard. She allowed that maybe her warning had done more harm than good when Clarke’s legs wrapped around her, ankles linking behind Lexa’s back. “Clarke,” she murmured, bringing their lips together as she ran a hand up the thigh wrapped around her waist. She’d fucked Clarke like that before, with Clarke’s legs wrapped tight around her and her cock buried deep inside her while Clarke’s body gave under Lexa’s every thrust, but that wasn’t what she had in mind for the night. She pushed against her thigh but Clarke’s grip was steadfast, and she had to rear up on her knees above Clarke, one hand against her sternum to hold her down on the bed, before Clarke registered her intent to move. “Not yet.”

If nothing else, her new position gave her an excellent view of her work. “Better,” she murmured, tracing her fingers over the angry, red mark she’d diligently crafted. It would bruise nicely, was already starting to darken, and Lexa took a moment to imagine the skin with the imprint of her teeth scarred into it.

At the thought, her hips bucked forward unconsciously. It was almost too much, because maybe Clarke would look perfect like that, carrying around the proof of Lexa’s possession of her. It wouldn’t be hard. Just a little more pressure, and her own neck bared for Clarke’s bite in return, and it’d been done.

She shook her head to clear away the thought, fully aware that a recent, and mutual, declaration of love didn’t mean that she was even close to ready for the kind of commitment that came with the etching of teeth into skin. Instead of indulging in the impulse, she dug her fingers into Clarke’s thighs and looked down at her, brow raised. “Clarke…”

With a resigned look, Clarke let her legs fall to the side. Lexa grinned, rewarded her with a kiss, and resumed her journey. She paused at Clarke’s breasts, unable to do differently, and lingered there for a long time before finally tearing her mouth away. She placed a kiss to Clarke’s belly, gripped the sides of her cock lightly in her teeth and ran her canines down the length of it, and licked a path along the inside of Clarke’s inner thigh.

She was maybe a little excited.

“On your knees,” she prompted, grabbing hold of Clarke’s wrists and tugging gently. “Come on.”

Clarke let Lexa pull her up and, with hands firm but light against her waist, turn her so that she was settled onto her hands and knees. She did not, however, do so without commentary.

“You planning on mounting me, Lex?”

It was tempting. Lexa couldn’t deny that, and Clarke had that tone of voice that played at being teasing but was actually completely down for it. Still, she had an agenda, and unlike every other time Clarke had managed to derail her – consciously or no – this time, she planned on keeping to it.

“No,” she said smugly, running her nails over the curve of Clarke’s ass, “but I’ll make a note of how much you want me to.”

Clarke moaned when Lexa tugged down her boyshorts, moaned even louder when Lexa reached between her legs, took her cock in hand, and gave it a rough pump.

“I want you to tell me again, Clarke,” Lexa said, pulling away long enough to draw on her gloves. Clarke heard the snap of them, or at least Lexa assumed so, from the way a shiver ran up her spine. “Tell me you want this.”

Clarke’s head dropped, hair spilling down to brush against the mattress. Her ability to tease abruptly gone, her voice took on a breathy, needy timbre. “Yes, Lexa. _Please_.”

Lexa took a moment to let the way Clarke said her name roll through her. It was a little ridiculous, but having her girlfriend on all fours in front of her, desperate for her, made her feel like pride personified – shoulders back, chest open, chin raised high. But, Clarke on her hands and knees wasn’t a sniveling, pathetic, submissive thing, no matter how she supplicated herself. She was vulnerable, true; not in the way Lexa had always conceptualized vulnerability – as defenselessness, powerlessness – but vulnerable because she trusted Lexa, and there was an undeniable strength in that.

Lexa took the plug, rolled a condom down over it, and slicked it with lube.

“I’ll go slowly, Clarke,” she promised, aligning the narrow tip with Clarke’s hole. She gave a gentle push, watched as Clarke spread around it, and bit her bottom lip to stifle a moan.

Clarke looked at Lexa over the curve of her shoulder. Her eyes were glinting fiercely, brows drawn as if angry, and her next words a furious demand. “Fuck slow.”

Lexa was helpless to resist. She watched the plug disappear under a steady, gentle pressure, until the base was nestled snugly against the curve of Clarke’s ass. She watched Clarke’s fingers dig into the sheet below them, heard her soft, satisfied whimper, and bit back a moan at the way her spine curved down reflexively, pressing her ass even higher in the air.

“Clarke,” she breathed. She took a moment to steady herself, because Clarke had opened so beautifully for her, before ripping off her gloves and running her hand up the length of Clarke’s spine, rucking up the shirt she was still wearing.

Clarke turned her head, looking back over the curve of her shoulder, and canines bared by her grin. “What are you going to do with me now?” she asked, and Lexa could feel Clarke’s muscles coiling under her palm.

She swallowed hard and forced her voice into a measured, steely calm at odds with the way her heart was racing. “I want to watch you.” She took a deep breath and met Clarke’s eyes. “I want watch you to come all over yourself for me.”

Clarke ran her tongue over the sharp line of her teeth and nodded slightly before rolling sinuously over onto her back. She settled down to face Lexa, shirt slipping off her shoulders, the curve of her lips almost feral. With trembling fingers, Lexa pulled Clarke’s boyshorts over her feet, pushed her shirt down and off, and straddled Clarke long enough to kiss her until her lips stung with it.

“Do it, Clarke,” she said, half out of her mind at the possibilities. She brought her hands to Clarke’s breasts, cupping them in a tight grip. “I want it all over your breasts. I want you dripping with it.”

And then she pushed herself away, sure that if she didn’t, she’d sink down onto Clarke’s cock and fuck herself until she screamed.

Clarke looked like she’d been ravaged. Her lips were swollen from their kisses, the resurgent bruise on her neck was purpling, and her chest was heaving. Lexa forced herself off the bed, though she didn’t take her eyes off Clarke. Clarke’s hand was around her cock, stroking upward in hard, fast jerks, and Lexa knew it wouldn’t be long. Not that she was overly upset about that. She had plans.

“Don’t stop,” she said, as she fumbled in one of the bags Clarke had lugged into the room. Her hand finally closed around what she was looking for, and she pulled out the strap-on, eyes still fixed on Clarke. She stood at the edge of the bed, slipping into the harness as Clarke’s eyes darkened. Clarke’s movements became both more focused and less precise, one hand wrapped tight around the base of her cock as the other stroked corkscrews around its tip. Lexa licked her lips at the way Clarke’s abdomen and thighs tensed, feeling the promise of release grow electric in the air. “That’s it,” she encouraged, glancing away only long enough to slot her own cock into place. “Come for me.”

Clarke shuddered, but Lexa noted with some surprise that she had clamped down hard on the base of her cock, pushing back an imminent orgasm.

She tilted her head to the side in confusion even as she reached for a condom, tearing open the packet and rolling the latex down the length of her cock. “Why?” she asked, crawling onto the bed to perch before Clarke.

It was a moment before Clarke could gather the wherewithal to speak, and when she did, her voice was strained and breathy. “I want to watch you too.”

Lexa remained puzzled until Clarke pushed the lube toward her with the nudge of a foot. Expression smoothing, she filled her palm with it, then wrapped her fist around her own cock, mirroring Clarke. “Like this?” she asked, beginning to pump it lazily.

Clarke nodded, drawing her teeth over her lower lip as she watched Lexa’s hand move. She copied the movement, matching Lexa’s pace and rhythm, and Lexa found herself scooting forward on her knees, needing to be closer. She found herself kneeling between the sprawl of Clarke’s legs, knees pushed into her inner thighs, so close it almost made her dizzy to look down and see the way Clarke’s abdomen began to clench again as her hand moved with something like desperation.

“Come on,” Lexa coaxed, reaching out with her free hand to cup Clarke’s cheek. Clarke turned her face into the touch, drawing Lexa’s thumb into her mouth and sucking hard as her hips began to pump upward. The first spray of cum landed thick and heavy on her chest, followed by a second and then a third as Clarke’s teeth bit down on the base of Lexa’s thumb. Her moan was muffled, but Lexa could feel the heat of her tongue swirling against the pad of her thumb; she was panting, warm gusts of air that danced over Lexa’s skin.

 By the time Clarke stopped, slumping back against the mattress, with Lexa’s thumb slipping from her mouth with a sharp pop, she’d done exactly as Lexa asked.

Lexa had thought that things might change after their mutual admission of love. It had seemed somehow possible that they’d be unable to do anything other than make love in its aftermath, slow and sensual and undoubtedly fulfilling but still somehow different, as if love itself would put a soft filter over everything about them. Lexa hadn’t been entirely comfortable with that. Not that she didn’t want to make love with Clarke, because she did, but she also wanted her like this, sweaty and boneless before her. A mess, really, with cum painted in sharp lines over her breasts and her mouth open, slack and wet as she struggled to catch her breath. She wanted Clarke’s eyes on her cock with the same kind of desperation they’d always had when they were together like this, like nothing would sate her until Lexa was buried deep, stretching her.

She’d thought that maybe she wouldn’t see that in Clarke’s eyes, or that Clarke wouldn’t want this anymore. That she wouldn’t want to be desperate and aching, splayed out before Lexa like a feast waiting to be devoured, because they were in love and love was kind and gentle and meek.

“Fuck, Lexa,” Clarke said, her voice low and raspy and delightfully content. “You…”

Lexa waited to hear just what Clarke thought she was, but Clarke seemed to lose track of her thoughts, leaning back and stretching her arms over her head and wiggling down into the mattress with a deep sigh.

“Uh, Clarke,” she began hesitantly, because really, they’d only just started to tick off the things she’d noted on her mental outline. “There’s something I’d like to try, if you’re okay with it.”

Clarke’s eyes blinked open and she looked up at Lexa with an amused grin. “Baby, I’ve yet to be disappointed with anything you wanted to try.”

Lexa fought down a blush as she leaned over to kiss Clarke softly, careful not to brush against her.

“It’s something I saw when I was doing research,” she said, the blush suddenly spiking out of control, “and I thought… I mean, I wanted to try it, but you can tell me to stop. Anytime. You know that, right?”

Clarke shook her head in exasperation. “Of course I do. Red, yellow, green. I remember.” Her grin shifted into something full of fondness. “Now, what is it you want to try this time?”

Lexa leaned back, her fingers moving to Clarke’s chest. She ran them through the stripes of cum, smearing them in messy lines until the valley between Clarke’s breasts was coated.

“I thought,” she said, wet fingertips on Clarke’s hips as she urged her up onto her knees, “that maybe,” and managed to get to her own feet with only a slight stumble, “you could…” She ran out of words and had to trust that Clarke would understand as she drew Clarke’s wrists up, positioning her palms to the outside of her breasts and encouraging Clarke to push so that they were pressed tight against one another.

Clarke looked down at herself then up at Lexa with a raised brow.

Lexa licked dry lips. “And I could…” she tried to say before abandoning all hope of forcing the words past her lips. Instead, she positioned the tip of her cock so that she could slide up between Clarke’s breasts, slippery now, and watched as her cock disappeared between them.

One of them inhaled sharply – or maybe both of them did – as the tip of Lexa’s cock emerged from between the tight squeeze of Clarke’s breasts. Lexa had to brace a hand against the wall, feet shifting against the mattress to find a more stable stance, because somehow it was _even_ _better_ than she’d imagined. And then Clarke lowered her head and flicked her tongue against the tip of Lexa’s cock, and her knees nearly buckled.

She dug her fingers into Clarke’s hair and pulled, bringing her head back so their eyes met, and it was nothing short of torture. Clarke’s eyes were dark, pupils nearly eclipsing blue, and even as she looked down into them, Lexa could see her cock moving between Clarke’s breasts.

It was hypnotizing.

When the sight of it became too much, she leaned down and kissed Clarke until neither of them could breathe.

“Come here,” she said, once she’d slumped down onto the mattress. Clarke did, moving to straddle her waist, and Lexa reached between her legs, grabbing hold of the base of the plug and pulling steadily as Clarke put a hand on Lexa’s shoulder to steady herself. It came free with a pop, and Lexa dropped it carelessly into one of the containers she’d moved to the bedside for just that reason. Clarke’s hips pumped against air for a moment, and Lexa grinned up at her, because maybe this could be love too.

She wrapped a hand around the base of her cock, holding it steady as Clarke pressed down onto it, taking Lexa’s length smoothly. When she was settled, the curve of her ass pressing against Lexa’s thighs, she paused long enough to lick her lips and give Lexa a wicked smile.

“Is this my birthday gift?” she asked, thighs flexing as she drew herself up along Lexa’s shaft. One hand searched blindly in the sheets until she found her discarded shirt, and Lexa watched with no little disappointment as Clarke used it to rub her chest clean. “I’ll be honest. I was kind of hoping this was what you were going to give me.”

And then she _smirked_.

That’s how she ended up in situations like this, Lexa thought, with the both of them perilously close to the edge of the bed so that she could brace a foot against the floor. All she’d wanted to do was lay back and let Clarke ride her, but no. Clarke had to taunt. Clarke had to tease. Clarke had to make it impossible for her to do anything other than surge up, pull Clarke to her, and roll them over so that Lexa was on top. Now, one of Clarke’s calves was braced over her shoulder and her hand was wrapped around the other, holding it loosely around her waist. Clarke’s head was thrown back, tendons in her neck pulled tight and red creeping slowly up her chest, and Lexa was mesmerized by the sight of her cock sliding smoothly in and out of her girlfriend’s ass. She knew it was cause and effect – a little bit of effort and her hips were pulling back. A little more, and they were sliding forward again. It was simple mechanics, really, but it felt like something beautiful.

“Clarke, baby,” she said, sliding a hand up Clarke’s side so that she could brush her thumb over the peak of her nipple, “touch yourself for me.”

She felt like she could do this forever, this slick push/pull that had Clarke panting beneath her.

“Fuck,” she moaned, leaning over to capture Clarke’s lips in a sloppy kiss. It trapped Clarke’s leg between them, changed the angle maybe, because Clarke made a sound of delirious pleasure and grasped desperately at the hair at the nape of Lexa’s neck.

Lexa was vaguely aware that she was murmuring things against Clarke’s lips, half-meant promises like _I’m going to fuck you like this all night_ , and things she possibly meant as praise, like _such a good girl_ , but she found it best not to dwell on that. Instead, she focused on the way her breasts brushed against Clarke’s with every thrust, and with the way Clarke was gasping and whimpering against her lips. Clarke’s short nails were digging into her back, leaving raw, stinging trails over the curve of her shoulder blades, spurring Lexa on. She wanted a back full of claw marks, something she could feel for days, with each little unexpected bite of pain a reminder of just how good she’d made Clarke feel.

Her hand slipped up further, fitting tight around Clarke’s neck. She squeezed lightly, the pressure against the front of Clarke’s throat ghost-like because she was more interested in restricting blood flow than in impeding the flow of oxygen. Beneath her, Clarke stiffened and made a sound so hedonistic that Lexa blushed at it.

Clarke’s nails dug trenches into her back, and Lexa felt her jerk against her belly, felt the hot rush of cum between them, and tightened her grip as Clarke shuddered her way through orgasm. Then, unable to take it any longer, Lexa jerked her hand away, working her fingers between them and underneath the harness and coming hard with just a few flicks of her fingertips against her clit, eyes focused on the blissful look on Clarke’s face. Unable to hold herself up any longer, she collapsed onto Clarke, and, afraid she might suffocate her, rolled them over so that she was on her back with Clarke draped against her front.

Lexa found herself drifting on the edge of sleep when Clarke chuckled, the sound vibrating through her chest. “Happy birthday to me,” she said, pressing a kiss to Lexa’s cheek. She pressed up onto her hands, and Lexa felt a rush of embarrassed pride at just how wrecked Clarke looked. “As much as I want you to stay right where you are, you’ve got to pull out, baby. Otherwise I just going to lay here all night, useless, because you feel so fucking good.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Lexa asked, fighting down a blush.

Clarke dipped down far enough to brush a kiss against her forehead. “Normally, nothing. But, you promised me that I’d get to do whatever I wanted with you, too, and I plan to collect.”

Even as she shivered in anticipation, Lexa rolled them over again. Technically, her turn wasn’t quite over, so she was well within her rights when she maneuvered so she was kneeling between Clarke’s legs, hands on the back of Clarke’s thighs to press her legs up against her chest as she slid her cock free. It left her exactly where she wanted to be, in the best position to see the way Clarke stayed open and hungry for her, and it took every ounce of willpower she possessed not to push right back inside.

\------

“I feel kind of like pretty woman,” Clarke said, swishing her hand through the water. Lexa had paid the surcharge to make sure they were in a room with a garden tub, and from the way Clarke was relaxing back against her shoulder, the extra expense had absolutely been worth it.

“Hmm?”

“You know, that movie with the prostitute? It came out like 20 years ago, maybe?”

Lexa blinked, forcing herself out of the trance created by warm water, unfortunately warm champagne, and Clarke draped atop her. “What?”

“Yeah. Fancy hotel room. Champagne. Chocolate covered strawberries. Ridiculously hot benefactor treating me like a princess.”

Unable to help it, Lexa snorted. “Clarke, I’m pretty sure this is not how that movie went.”

“Well, yeah. I think they had plain strawberries, which means you’re doing even better than that rich dude.”

“So are you saying I make you feel like a hooker?”

Clarke laughed, and water splashed against the edges of the tub as she shifted to face Lexa. “I believe I said you made me feel like a princess,” she said, pressing a kiss to the curve of Lexa’s jaw.

“Even though I…” Lexa trailed off, not quite sure what to pick. She was better at doing things in the heat of the moment than she was at reflecting about or speaking of them, and really, there’d been so many things she’d done already that evening that were better off not being discussed.

As if Clarke could read her thoughts and predict the oncoming spiral, she growled, “Pretty much everything you do is super fucking hot. Every time you say _Clarke, I want to try something_ , I nearly come just imagining what you might do. I mean, fuck Lexa… the look on your face alone is worth it.”

Even with the reassurance, Lexa felt herself sinking down into the water in a physical manifestation of her sudden and overwhelming embarrassment.

“Promise me you’ll never stop,” Clarke said, halting the inevitable submersion by cuddling into Lexa and pressing her face into her neck. “I would cry if you did, Lexa, and they’d be ugly tears. Do you not understand how lucky I am?”

Instead of answering, Lexa pressed her face into Clarke’s hair and tightened her grip around her.

“I’m not even talking about the sex, which is the best I’ve ever had, by the way,” Clarke said, voice suddenly serious. “ _You_ make me happy, Lexa. I never thought I could be this happy. Don’t get me wrong – this is amazing, but I wasn’t lying when I said spending my birthday in my pajamas on the couch with you would be enough.”

Lexa felt Clarke’s teeth press into her throat just hard enough to be a promise.

“Now, come on,” Clarke said, slipping around so that she was straddling Lexa. “Let’s have a picnic. I know you brought food.”

\------

There was food, and more (warm) champagne, and Lexa found herself laughing as she brushed her hands over the sheets to get rid of the crumbs. They were lounging in the plush terry cloth bathrobes they found hanging in the closet, facing one another and with legs twined together making the bit of mattress trapped between them a makeshift picnic table. She was so content that she didn’t even mind when Clarke stretched over to snatch her phone off of the bedside table at the rattle of a text.

Clarke looked down, laughed, typed something, and tossed the phone to the side again. “Bell’s freaking out,” she said by way of explanation. “I told you he was dating that Alpha, right? Echo?”

Lexa nearly reared back in surprise, because no. Clarke hadn’t told her that. Bellamy? With another Alpha? That had disaster in the making written all over it.

“Yeah,” Clarke confirmed with a nod. “He really, really likes her, but she’s a total top. All the way, no room for compromise, and he’s having to… adjust.”

As curious as she was taken aback, Lexa couldn’t hold in the questions. “Are they having sex? Is Bellamy, you know…” She trailed off with a gesture that honestly could have meant anything.

“It’s been mostly jerking off together, I think? He went down on her a couple of times, maybe?” Clarke’s face scrunched as if she was searching her memory for details. “They’ve been working up to penetration, though, and now I’m his own personal Wikipedia on how to get fucked.”

“With all those things he said to you, I never thought he would…” Lexa gave up and made another vague gesture with her hands. “You know?”

Clarke shrugged, apparently unruffled by Bellamy’s history of teasing. “I guess he likes her enough to try.”

“What did you tell him?” Lexa asked, suddenly struck with curiosity.

Clarke’s tone was disconcertingly normal as she listed off her advice as if they weren’t talking about her shorthand notes for taking cock. “To take it slow. To not do it unless he was absolutely sure he was ready and that he wanted it. To make sure she used her fingers to prepare him properly first. To use lots of lube. To make sure he was nice and clean if he knew it was going to happen. To relax and kind of push back against her to make it easier.” Clarke grinned at her. “Maybe I should have made him talk to you instead.”

“Clarke,” she whined, feeling the tips of her ears burn.

“You’re kind of a pro with your cock at this point, Lex. I’m sure there’s a lot you could teach him.”

Lexa rolled her eyes and tried not to feel insufferably proud. “ _Clarke_.”

“Nah, you’re right,” Clarke teased. “I’d prefer to be the only Alpha who knows just how good you are.”

“Then you should stop talking about me when you get drunk,” she said, only halfway feigning the self-righteous edge in her voice.

Clarke laughed so long and so joyously that Lexa was almost upset. Almost.

\------

Lexa knew she hadn’t been away that long. She’d insisted on cleaning their toys, but that didn’t take more than a few minutes, so how Clarke had managed to move the enormous mirror so that it was alongside the bed was beyond her. Lexa had seen it when they’d first gotten to the room. It was as big as a door with a heavy, thick wooden frame, and even though it’d simply been propped against the wall, she’d assumed it was immobile. In that, she’d been wrong, apparently, because in the time that she’d spent soaping up silicone, Clarke had managed to drag it halfway across the room.

“Clarke?”

“Hmm?” Clarke replied disingenuously.

“I see you’ve redecorated."

“Oh, that? Don’t worry about it.” She grinned, eyes flashing with anticipation.

Lexa wasn’t sure how she was supposed to _not_ worry about a giant mirror propped alongside the bed, and was certain her expression conveyed as much.

“Don’t worry about it,” Clarke repeated, closing the distance between them and wrapping her arms around Lexa’s waist. “Unless you _are_ really worried about it, but I’m pretty sure you made me memorize colors for that kind of situation.”

She had, Lexa realized. “Yellow.”

Lexa had expected a momentary lull, and perhaps a quizzical look. She hadn’t expected the space between them to break suddenly and definitively into a cleanly divided before and after, with mischievous excitement on one side and fraught uncertainty on the other.

Clarke nodded and stepped away gently, bringing her hands down to twist at the belt of her robe. “Okay, sure. We’ll slow down.” She looked lost for a moment, casting her gaze around the room apprehensively until she lit upon the television remote, which she snatched up as if it was a lifeline. “TV?”

“Clarke,” Lexa said, snagging the remote before Clarke could start scrolling through channels, and tossing it aside so she could take Clarke’s hands in hers, “I just want to know what it’s for. That’s all.”

Clarke continued to fidget, so much so that Lexa walked her back until her legs hit the bed. She pushed Clarke down, aware that if she didn’t do something to stifle it, her nervousness would catch and then they’d both be anxious messes.

Lexa held in a sigh, because it seemed that anything that might make Clarke feel judged might not be in either of their best interests. “So, the mirror.”

After a long moment, Clarke gave in to her own sigh. “I wanted to see you, and I wanted you to see me. I wanted you to see yourself.”

Lexa nodded, because that all seemed like a logical conclusion to the mystery of the mirror at the bedside. What it wasn’t, though, was an adequate explanation for the way Clarke had suddenly shut down.

“Okay,” Lexa said, pushing a loose strand of hair behind Clarke’s ear. “I think I’ll be okay with that.”

From the way Clarke’s shoulders remained slumped, she surmised that she hadn’t yet found her way to the heart of the problem.

“Clarke, talk to me. Please.”

Clarke’s shoulders seemed to slump even further before she took in a steadying breath, eyes flicking up to meet Lexa’s. “You know I don’t plan like you do, but I saw the mirror and I knew what I wanted.”

Lexa nodded, because that was the scant ground they’d already managed to cover.

“And then you said yellow and I thought about it – really thought about it – and I realized I was asking for something you wouldn’t want.”

While she wouldn’t say she was entirely comfortable with the idea of the mirror, Lexa wasn’t sure she was uncomfortable either. The notion was… intriguing.

“I didn’t mean for us to stop entirely,” she said gently, slipping her hand to the back of Clarke’s neck to scratch soothingly at her nape. “I’ll let you know if I find it to be too much.”

Clarke shook her head sadly. “That’s not what I meant,” she said, and frowned. “I mean, I wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable with any of it, but when I saw the mirror I had a vision of you bent over the bed with me behind you, pulling your head back so you had to look at yourself and see…” Clarke swallowed hard. “So you had to see. And I know you don’t like that, not when you’re not on your heat, and I just… I’m sorry.”

She hadn’t really anticipated finding herself parsing meaning while perched on a hotel bed in a bathrobe, but it couldn’t be helped. Clarke looked miserable, tense and angry with herself and uncomfortable in her own skin, and Lexa felt an overwhelming desire to soothe. So, she shifted, sliding so that she was straddling Clarke’s thighs and lowering gently down onto her lap, because she needed to fix this. Not that long before, Clarke had been on her knees grinning up at Lexa while she – and when she wasn’t actually in the midst of doing it, Lexa had trouble even thinking it – but while she _fucked Clarke’s breasts_ , and here was Clarke, worried that Lexa might crumble to pieces if she exerted a little bit of dominance.

“Clarke,” she said, brushing kisses along the line of Clarke’s jaw, “do you hold yourself back with me? Do you… are there things you want that you don’t let yourself have because you think I won’t like them?”

Clarke’s listless shrug burned into her. “Only sometimes, but I don’t ever want you to feel like you have to do something just to please me. Not if you’re not okay with it. And you… you wouldn’t have been okay with that.”

“How about we make an agreement that I’ll decide what I am and am not okay with?” Lexa said with a gentle smile meant to undercut any perceived rebuke. And then, because Clarke understood actions more deeply than she did just words, brushed her teeth against the bruise at the base of her throat. “I want you to do it.” Lexa paused to consider what she’d just said to verify the rightness of it. “I want you to fuck me like that.”

“Lexa, no,” Clarke said, pulling back to look at her in exasperation.

“Just listen to me.” Lexa brought her hands down to the tie of her robe, easing open the knot there and shrugging the material off of her shoulders. She kept it trapped by the bend of her elbow, the fabric parted and open to reveal her naked underneath. “I love that you listen to what I say and respect the boundaries I set, but I don’t want to change who you are.” She ran the tips of her fingers over the soft skin of Clarke’s abdomen and down until her hand was wrapped around Clarke’s burgeoning hardness. “I know I haven’t always been kind in my assessments of Alphas, but you’re not just some random, asshole Alpha, Clarke. You’re _my_ Alpha. The things you do when we’re together don’t come from a place of… of _entitlement_. At least, I don’t think they do.”

Clarke shook her head fiercely, eyes locked with Lexa’s.

“It’s okay,” Lexa said delicately, thinking it’d be so much easier if she could write all of this down in a letter and then disappear while Clarke read it. She closed her eyes for a moment and swallowed hard, then forced herself to continue because it was something that needed to be said. “If you want to get rough sometimes, it’s okay. It’s okay if you want to be dominant, even Alpha dominant, when I’m not on my heat and you’re not in your rut. If I don’t like it or it’s not what I want, I’ll tell you and I trust you to stop. Okay?”

She could tell by the reticence in Clarke’s eyes that she wasn’t entirely convinced, but Clarke did nod and echo her _okay_.

“So let’s see what we look like in the mirror,” Lexa offered, letting her robe fall to the floor. After a moment, she moved to follow it down to her knees.

A hand around her waist stopped her. “No,” Clarke said, reaching out to brush her fingers over Lexa’s lips, something in her gaze still hesitant. “It’s my turn to get what I want.”

Even though she nodded, Lexa had to admit to at least a little confusion when Clarke stood and held out a hand and guided her around to the side of the bed only to push her down again. Only this time, right in front of the mirror.

Clarke moved in front of her, blocking most of Lexa’s view of herself, looking as nervous as she felt in the mirror’s reflection. She loosened her own belt with a deft move, and then the robe was parting and falling to the floor and Clarke was bare in front of her. Her hands found Clarke’s hips as Clarke climbed into her lap, straddling Lexa’s waist, and over the curve of her shoulder, Lexa saw them. Her fingers were gripping Clarke tightly, and she watched, transfixed by her own movements, as she slid one hand down to cup the curve of Clarke’s ass and the other up her spine to splay wide against her back.

“I kind of wanted to kiss you for a while, if that’s okay,” Clarke said, mouth hot against Lexa’s ear, and she shivered, nodded, and tilted her chin up to meet Clarke halfway.

By the time Clarke eased back, Lexa was afraid she might melt. Clarke had brushed light kisses against her lips until Lexa hadn’t been able to stand it, until she’d surged up to catch Clarke’s bottom lip between her teeth. Even then, Clarke had continued to tease her with quick flicks of the tongue and gentle suction, leaving Lexa squirming beneath her. Eons later, Clarke had grown bolder, licking against Lexa’s tongue and nipping against her lips, and Lexa had moaned and surged up against her, seeking more. Again, Clarke evaded, kissing her way over to Lexa’s ear and then, once Lexa was gasping and begging for more, down to her neck. She drew her tongue over Lexa’s pulse point, made it tingle with gentle suction, but withheld the sharp edge of her teeth.

No bite came, and Clarke shifted away, reaching behind Lexa to snag a pillow, which she dropped on the floor at her feet. Then she was no longer in her lap, down on her knees on the pillow, as she drifted down so she was level with Lexa’s breasts. Though she didn’t focus on the image, Lexa still saw herself with her head thrown back, pressing Clarke’s head closer to her chest. When Clarke shifted, she saw the places where Clarke’s teeth had scraped, where the pull of her mouth had left the skin red and swollen.

Later, she saw the way her leg draped over Clarke’s back as Clarke’s head moved between her legs. Her fingers dug into Clarke’s hair. Together, they were nothing but skin on skin, and she watched as Clarke’s hand snaked over to find hers and twine their fingers together. The kindling of one sense seemed to spark others, and she became intensely aware of the sound of her moans echoing through the room. In the mirror, her eyes were hooded and dark. Her chest was heaving and her muscles were shifting restlessly. Clarke moved sinuously against her, back curved. Her feet were tucked underneath her, almost incongruously prim.

Clarke pulled Lexa’s clit into her mouth, sucking hard, and Lexa suddenly lost focus on anything other than her very sudden awareness of what she looked like when she came. It was angry, almost, with the crinkle between her brows and the way her nostrils flared. She watched as her hips pumped up against Clarke’s face as if she was watching someone else, so little control did she have over her own body in that moment, and her heel was digging into Clarke’s back and she was holding tight to Clarke’s hair and...

“ _Clarke_ ,” she screamed, body curling in on itself in pleasure.

And then she could see the movement of Clarke’s arm, could feel Clarke’s fingers pumping inside her, and she had to brace an arm behind herself to remain even somewhat upright. Clarke’s ribs were expanding with each deep breath she took but she didn’t move from her perch, tongue lashing against Lexa’s clit. No longer able to keep her eyes on the mirror, Lexa was only vaguely aware of the way she collapsed, her back arching and her head digging into the mattress. Clarke stopped fucking her only long enough to urge Lexa to plant both heels on the mattress, and she knew she was spread wide, vulnerable and open, and craned her head to try and see, but it was useless. Clarke was filling her again, fingers crooked up and dragging against her with each thrust, and the sounds she was making as her mouth worked were sinful. Lexa’s thighs flexed, pushing her up and toward the press of Clarke’s tongue against her clit until she was screaming again, unable to stop herself.

When she blinked herself back into awareness, Clarke was pressed against her, face nuzzled into the curve of Lexa’s neck. She was filled with a lassitude that made thoughts of movement nearly impossible, which wasn’t acceptable. Not in the slightest.

“Clarke,” she murmured, forcing herself to rouse. She shifted her hips, a wordless request for Clarke to move that Clarke either didn’t notice or ignored. It was maybe a few minutes before she tried again, able to do little more than trail her fingers down the curve of Clarke’s spine in the interim, but Lexa had a goal. “Come on, Clarke,” she said, this time with a little more authority. “Let me up.”

With a groan, Clarke rolled off of her. Lexa took a moment to enjoy the cool air against her sweaty skin before pushing herself up onto her knees. She looked around, mind still a little fuzzy, before humming with satisfaction.

“Lexa, what are you doing?” Clarke asked, as Lexa settled herself down onto the mattress, knees tucked underneath her and arms spread out before her, facing the mirror.

She grinned up at Clarke and spread her legs even further. “Waiting for you,” she said, forcing herself up onto her elbows. She chanced a quick look at the mirror in front of her, saw her hair hanging down over her shoulders and the sway of her breasts, before looking pointedly at Clarke. “Alpha.”

She saw the hunger flare in Clarke’s eyes and arched a brow, as if daring Clarke to get to it.

“Fuck, your back,” Clarke said as she came to stand behind Lexa, running her fingers lightly over the marks she’d made, and Lexa couldn’t suppress a grin.

“Would you rather be on top of me?” she asked, looking at Clarke over her shoulder. “I could return the favor.”

Clarke ran the tip of her cock through Lexa’s wetness, apparently the only answer she was willing to give.

Lexa turned her eyes back to the mirror. In it, Clarke loomed above her, eyes focused intently on the place where Lexa could feel herself beginning to stretch over Clarke’s cock. She was wet and ready and Clarke slid in with ease, but Lexa couldn’t help the way her eyes fluttered closed. Hands settled on her hips and Clarke began to move in slow, steady strokes that forced Lexa to feel every inch of her.

“Don’t close your eyes,” Clarke said, her voice an entreaty and not a command. “Watch us.”

Lexa forced her head up. She made herself focus, saw the way her body moved with each thrust. She met Clarke’s eyes in the reflection, but the sole light lit behind her left them in shadows. Clarke’s hands were wrapped around her upper thighs, fingers digging in tightly enough to bruise as she used the hold to pull Lexa’s hips back to meet her. Clarke was leaning back to give more power to each thrust of her hips, and Lexa whimpered, falling to her elbows and then further, unable to support herself. Clarke followed, planting one fist into the mattress while her other hand curled around Lexa’s shoulder, and Lexa forced her head up to meet her own eyes in the mirror.

Her knees were spread wide. Clarke loomed over her, buried deep, her thrusts short and sharp. One of Lexa’s hands slid forward as the hand on her shoulder slid down her back and underneath her. Clarke’s fingers found her clit and Lexa whimpered. In the mirror, she looked dazed. Her eyes glinted and her mouth was opened wide, lips wet. She moved with each of Clarke’s thrusts, her body boneless with pleasure.

The position forced Clarke closer to her. Lexa could feel the press of Clarke’s breasts against her back, and when she shifted the focus of her gaze, she could see Clarke staring back at her. The hunger in her expression was barely tempered by the limn of love, and some part of Lexa curled into the comforting thought that this, too, was love. She was disassembled by it, panting and on the verge of flying apart. Clarke was murmuring encouragements for her to let go, was promising that she had her. She threw a hand back, desperate for connection, and when Clarke wrapped their fingers together, she gave in. She bore down hard on Clarke’s cock and keened out her release as Clarke buried herself deep and joined her.

\------

Lexa woke up wrapped around Clarke. She vaguely remembered Clarke trying to urge her up the bed before giving up and rearranging the pillows so that the two of them were stretched out perpendicular to the head of the bed. She’d pulled the covers over them and managed to rearrange them so that only their feet hung over the side of the mattress, and she’d pressed a kiss to the corner of Lexa’s mouth along with a sleepy _love you_. Now, the sun was shining through the centimeter wide crack left between the curtains and Lexa stretched lazily. She pressed her face into the crook of Clarke’s shoulder and hummed contentedly.

“Happy birthday,” she murmured, the way Clarke shifted deliberately beneath her letting her know she was awake.

Clarke laughed, light and full of joy as she pressed a kiss to the top of Lexa’s head. “You made sure of that.”

Lexa rolled her eyes and pressed even closer to Clarke to hide her blush.

“I mean it,” Clarke argued, somehow aware of Lexa’s wordless fond exasperation. “If we could stay here all day, like this, I’d do it. Forget anything else. You’re all I need for a happy birthday.”

“You don’t have to sweet talk me,” Lexa said as she rolled over onto her back, tipping over from half asleep to unavoidably awake. She raised her arms above her head and pointed her toes in a full body stretch, grunting in pleasure at the burn of pleasantly exhausted muscles, and smiled indolently as she teased, “I already let you have your way with me.”

“Maybe,” Clarke allowed, rolling onto her belly and grinning over at Lexa, “but we still have time before checkout.”

Despite herself, Lexa snorted. “Bath first, then breakfast,” she said, reaching out to deliver a sharp slap to Clarke’s uncovered ass. “Then your actual birthday gift then home to get ready for your party. Then, if you’re lucky…”

She trailed off as she slid out of bed, well aware of Clarke’s eyes on her as she padded across the room. Minutes later, with the sound of water running behind her, she reappeared in the doorway and smirked at the way Clarke was staring at her forlornly. “You coming?”

With a grin, Clarke scrambled after her.


	8. Bonfires and Vanities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Many conversations are had - Lexa and Bellamy, Lexa and Finn, Clarke and Abby, Lexa and Abby, Lexa and Anya, etc.
> 
> They go varying levels of well, including not very.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for things you will find in this chapter that you haven't found in other chapters: parent/child unpleasantness. There's also your general sex-related business, with a bit more bottoming from the bottom from Lexa than we've seen previously in non-heat related situations.
> 
> I made Nyko and Luna parents to Lexa and Anya, and I made them happy, damnit. I also feel like this is not an ending chapter, so I changed the chapter count to reflect that.

“Stop it,” Clarke said, bumping her shoulder against Lexa’s. She was bright red and scowling, hands stuffed deep into the front pockets of her jeans and shoulders up around her ears, which was almost as cute as the picture on the wall, Lexa decided.

“But you were so adorable,” Lexa teased, wrapping her hand around Clarke’s elbow and leaning over to press a kiss against her cheek. It was the truth. Clarke, age 11, with silky blonde pigtails and a shy, closed-mouth grin, was absolutely precious.

“I was not adorable,” Clarke grumbled. “I was fearsome.”

Lexa laughed and shifted so that she was standing behind Clarke, chin propped on her shoulder so they were both examining the 16 by 20 inch portrait hung in a place of pride in the entryway of her childhood home. She slid her arms around Clarke’s waist, tugging gently, and tilted her head to the side so that their cheeks were pressed together. “Adorable.”

“If I’d known there’d be mockery involved…” Clarke said with a weary sigh.

“Hush.”

Lexa didn’t want to hear any regrets, not even in jest. It had been something Clarke had agonized over for a week, the invitation for Lexa to join her at her mother’s home for a few days before Christmas, and it meant more than Lexa had anticipated to be able to say yes. Clarke talked about her father, more freely and more openly as their relationship progressed, but her mother was a cipher. Lexa didn’t press, because family relationships were complicated and as curious as she might be, all signs pointed to the need for discretion. From what she could tell, they talked on the phone rarely, and after each short conversation, Clarke was irritable and prickly. The effects would wear off and she’d be back to her usual self, but Lexa had learned to give her the space to work through whatever it was that conversations with her mother brought out in her.

She wondered if it was the reminder of Clarke’s father hanging over their interactions that made them so tense. She couldn’t imagine – didn’t want to imagine – losing either of her own parents, and had no idea what that might do to their little family unit. It didn’t seem likely that it would tear them apart, but then again, there was no predicting what effect grief might have.

They both jumped at the scratch of a key in the door, and Lexa untangled herself just in time to reposition herself alongside Clarke.

Abigail Griffin was a stark contrast to her daughter. Where Clarke was blonde hair and blue eyes, with pale, creamy skin, her mother was brown eyes, brown hair, and olive skin. She was whipcord lean to Clarke’s curves. There was an echoing resonance there, maybe in the stubborn jut of their chins or the sharp arch of their brows. Or, maybe in the way they stiffened, squaring off against one another in a manner more akin to adversaries than to mother and daughter.

“Mom,” Clarke said, unconsciously shifting closer to Lexa.

Her mother blinked then forced a tight smile, jolting into movement as if someone was behind her, pushing her into it. She gathered Clarke in a tight hug, pressing her face into Clarke’s hair and breathing in deeply. “ _Clarke_.”

Something relaxed in Lexa at the sight of it. Too soon, maybe, because a moment later, Abigail’s eyes shot open and her nostrils flared. She pushed back gently, hands cupped around Clarke’s biceps, and looked her over with sharp, distrustful eyes.

“Who’s your friend?” she asked, not taking her eyes off of Clarke. She’d broadened her stance, feet wide apart and shoulders squared, and for a moment, Lexa wondered if she was going to forcibly remove Clarke from her orbit.

Clarke shook off the hold and stepped back, her smile strained. “Mom, this is Lexa. My girlfriend. I told you about her.”

When Abigail looked at Lexa, she was all teeth. “Right.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Griffin,” Lexa said cordially, as if she wasn’t being appraised like a particularly unsavory piece of meat, and offered her hand.

For a long moment, she was afraid the gesture would go unreturned.

“Mom,” Clarke urged.

Abigail’s handshake was quick and harsh. “Right, well, we’ll catch up in the morning, Clarke. I ended up having to pull a double, and I’m exhausted.” She gave Lexa a hard glare, nostrils flaring once again as her eyes swept from the crown of her head down to her toes and back again. “Lexa.”

And that… that was not the way Lexa had hoped her meeting with the Griffin family matriarch would go.

\------

Clarke had resolutely refused to talk about it. _Tomorrow_ , she’d said when Lexa had tried to gently broach the subject of Abigail Griffin’s apparent distaste for her, shrugging into a thick knit sweater. It had a high neck with buttons running along one side from neck to shoulder, and Clarke had left them undone, revealing the weft of a thermal undershirt underneath. It was ridiculously, unfairly distracting. Caught there in the triangle between undershirt and soft knit was the patch of skin Lexa would sometimes decorate with a dark bruise, and the sight of it unmarked nearly made her salivate with the desire to claim it again.

She possibly had a problem, she admitted to herself.

So, instead of discussing the fact that Clarke’s mother might murder her in her sleep, Lexa let Clarke wrap her up in a thick sweater and tug a knit cap down over her ears and lead her out into a night that might be chilly enough to warrant it at some point in the future but wasn’t quite there yet. She let Clarke keep up a cheery ramble about the bonfire on the beach they were headed toward – its history, its stories, the various attendees she might meet – and kept their fingers wrapped tightly together. It was interesting in the abstract. She’d never been to a bonfire on a beach, much less one in winter, and the prospect of seeing Clarke’s high school friends could be interesting. What they’d have to talk about she didn’t know, but if it kept a smile on Clarke’s face, even one as plastic as the one she’d been sporting since her mother left them standing there in the entryway, it might be worth it.

“Clarke!” Bellamy Blake called out when they were barely out of the car, tromping across the sand to wrap Clarke up in a back-thumping hug as if he hadn’t seen Clarke just a few days before. And right, Clarke had gone to high school with the Blakes and with Raven Reyes, who she knew was with Anya at their parents’ house – which was unfortunate, because of the assortment, she’d choose Raven as a companion every time.

It was the start of an assembly line. She stood by and watched as Clarke was greeted by a seemingly endless stream of old high school friends, smiling and shaking hands as she was introduced. It appeared that everyone there knew Clarke, which she supposed shouldn’t have surprised her, even if it did get slightly exhausting.

“Woods,” Bellamy said, clapping a hand on her shoulder, “get a drink with me.”

She conferred wordlessly with Clarke, who gave her an encouraging, _why not_ kind of shrug.

“Come on,” Bellamy said with a gentle tug, and Lexa let herself be led away. They fished chilly beers out of a cooler, though Lexa had no intention of actually drinking, and settled down on a log on the far side of the fire. Lexa watched as Clarke grinned and nodded at another newcomer, features cast in orange in the glow of the fire, and relaxed somewhat.

“So what do you think of Arkadia?” Bellamy asked, twisting off the cap of his beer with a sharp crack.

Lexa shrugged. “I haven’t seen much of it.”

“Not much of it to see,” Bellamy said, bumping his shoulder against Lexa’s in disturbing comradeship. “Did you meet Clarke’s mother yet?”

Lexa’s stomach curled sourly. “Briefly,” she muttered, and decided she was going to have a bit of her beer after all.

“I had a crush on her all through high school, you know. Total milf.”

She had not known that, and thought she might have been better off having never known it. But then, at the very least, maybe it opened up a line of conversation that didn’t touch on the way Clarke’s mother had presumably hated her on sight. It was evidence of the beginning of a _Bellamy-Blake-Is-Into-Alphas_ pattern, which was far more interesting than contemplating the fuckability of her girlfriend’s mother. “How are things going with Echo?”

All of Bellamy’s wide-grinning bravado dissipating in an instant, and Lexa found herself suddenly much more engaged in their exchange. “Good, I think?” he said, giving a one-shouldered shrug. “I mean, I like her. I really like her. It’s just…”

She waited, dying to prod but holding back.

“Okay,” Bellamy said, twisting to face her. “So, maybe you… I don’t know. You’re an Omega, right? You... you know.”

Lexa arched a brow and left it at that, because the amount of _you knows_ he might be referring to were vast and likely largely offensive.

“Do you not feel… I mean, it’s different. When you’re the one, you know…” He broke off, and even in the flickering firelight, Lexa could see the blush darkening his cheeks. He shook his head, scratched a nail against the beer’s label, and sighed. “I feel like I shouldn’t like it.”

She rearranged herself so that she was facing him as well because this was self-doubt. She knew self-doubt. She hated it, had had just about enough of it, because fuck self-doubt. “Bellamy…”

“She’s just so…” he interrupted before trailing off with a growl. “It’s always all about her cock. Maybe I want her to suck me off too, you know? Maybe I want her to ask if I enjoy it before she’s halfway down my throat. And maybe I want her to really ask, not just push me down further and growl _you like that, don’t you_ , you know?”

He sighed and Lexa ground her teeth together to hide any visible reaction to all of the things she’d learned about Bellamy Blake in the past 30 seconds.

“And… and I do, okay. I like it, but still. You know what I mean, right?” He scoffed, shook his head. “She’s just so smug about it sometimes. Like I should be grateful.”

Lexa blinked, and found herself reaching out to wrap her hand around his in comfort before she realized what she was doing. There was an improper bit of commiseration on the tip of her tongue – _Alphas, am I right?_ – but she had the feeling Bellamy wasn’t in the mood to have a bit of teasing mixed into the comfort he was apparently seeking. “First off, there is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying what you two do together.” She looked at him until he looked back and nodded shallowly, because she wanted to make sure that he’d heard and processed the sentiment. “And not that it’s easy, because I know it’s not, but have you talked about this with her?”

“No.” His chin dropped and his shoulders slumped, and Lexa found herself in the very strange position of wanting to give Bellamy Blake a hug. “These days it seems like all she wants to do when we’re together is fuck. And it’s not that I don’t enjoy it, you know, but sometimes I’d like a little more than just a slap on the ass and her asking me to hand her the lube. I feel like such a fucking Omega.” He paused. Winced. “Sorry.”

She took a moment to let her irritation settle because this particular moment wasn’t about her. “You like this girl. You like her so much you were willing to try to make things work with her, even if that meant making compromises.”

Bellamy looked at her guardedly. “Yeah.”

“What compromises has she made?”

He shrugged. “She’d never dated another Alpha before.”

“That’s it?”

“Her family is extremely conservative,” he shot back heatedly, on the defensive. “Very traditional. Alphas with Omegas. That’s the way it is with them. They might be okay with her fucking around with a Beta, but only if it’s not serious. They’re already on her case as it is, saying it’s past time for her to be mated and making pups. That’s what they call them – pups, like this is 1850 or something.” He scowled, dug his toe into the sand. “Or, hell, they’d be happy if she was making pups period, whether she’s mated or not. If they found out she was mounting an Alpha instead, they’d disown her.”

When his words caught up with him, Bellamy’s blush deepened. After a moment, he laughed harshly. “I don’t know why I’m complaining. It’s true. I let her mount me. Why wouldn’t she think she could treat me like some…”

He clenched his teeth, looked at her with sheepish defiance, then looked away.

Lexa rolled her eyes. “You Alphas, you drive me crazy with all this worrying you do over whose cock is going where. Talk to your girlfriend. Tell her what you need from her. If she can’t give you what you need, find someone who can.” She made sure he was meeting her gaze before she continued. “Wanting to have a partner who values you for more than just the places where she can stick her cock does not make you weak. If she cares about you, she’ll listen to you. She’ll work with you so that you both can be happy. And you know what? Fuck being ashamed of what you like. The way you like to get fucked does not define who you are. Your status doesn’t define who you are. What everyone else thinks you should like or be like doesn’t define who you are.”

He nodded, looking moderately more confident in himself. “Fuck yeah,” he said, giving her a soft punch on the bicep. He regarded her for a moment before grinning. “You know, you’re way more chill than I thought. I mean, enlightened Omega or not, I know if that had been Echo talking to her ex all this time the way Clarke’s been talking to Finn, I wouldn’t be able to just ignore it the way you have.”

Lexa grinned along with him until his meaning registered. When it did, she looked back to where she’d last seen Clarke, finding her in the same place with the same companion. “That’s Finn Collins?” She waited for a confirmatory nod before she shoved her beer in Bellamy’s direction. “Hold this.”

\------

Fucking Finn Collins had long, dark hair and a somewhat patchy beard. His face was just as punchable as Lexa had always imagined. That one slight slip with Clarke’s bootcamp instructor aside, Lexa wasn’t the kind of person who went about punching people. Finn Collins, though, presented a mighty temptation.

“Lexa!” Clarke said with a bright smile as Lexa wrapped an arm around her waist. “Hey, Finn, it’s Lexa. Lex, we were just talking about you.”

Lexa had to let go of Clarke’s waist to shake Finn’s hand, but immediately resumed her hold, fingers digging into the soft knit of Clarke’s sweater.

“Yeah,” Finn confirmed, though his smile wasn’t nearly as genuine as Clarke’s. “Clarke’s been telling me all about you.”

So this was the Beta boy who’d broken Clarke’s heart. Lexa was not impressed. “I’ve heard about you as well,” she managed, though it was possible her own smile was more of a teeth-bared threat. She was aware that she was slowly inching closer to him, and that her brow was furrowed and her free hand clenched in a fist, but she couldn’t stop herself. She could read the desire in Finn’s face – for Clarke’s attention to be on him again, for Lexa to be far, far away – magnifying her determination to not allow him either of those things.

“Clarke was telling me that you’ve been dating for a couple of months.”

“Since last Spring, actually,” she corrected him, wondering why Clarke remained so unruffled. Didn’t she see what was happening? Didn’t she see Finn looking at her like a hopeful puppy? Was she somehow unaware that this boy with the patchy beard clearly wanted to reconnect on a more amorous level? Lexa considered that Clarke might simply be so used to seeing fucking Finn Collins looking at her with that yearning, faux-innocent expression that his obviousness was no longer obvious to her. She wasn’t quite sure what else she could do to drive home the fact to him that his attentions were misplaced. It was a fairly simple equation. Clarke had subtracted an asshole who had made her cry because of his assholish ways and added a Lexa who had also made her cry just a little but who had tried very hard to make up for it. Equation solved, no need for the reintroduction of old, useless, and forgotten variables. In the hierarchy of people who had claimed Clarke’s affections, there was Lexa with a checkmark beside her name and Finn Collins whose name had been struck through.

“You’re pretty lucky,” he said, smiling wistfully at Clarke. “But I’m sure you know that.”

This asshole was trying to move in on _her Alpha_. What did he think, that she was just an insignificant blip on Clarke’s radar? That she was inconsequential, just some minor barrier to be overcome? That he might actually have a chance? Lexa was vaguely aware that she was emitting pheromones. She _never emitted pheromones_. She just didn’t, and now she was trying to mark her territory, and fucking Finn Collins was a beta and couldn’t even smell it. Not that that stopped her from putting out a stinking cloud of _my Alpha, MINE_. Not that every Alpha or Omega in the vicinity or downwind could very clearly smell what she was trying to do, she was sure, and fucking Finn Collins was just standing there smiling dopily. She was going through some kind of crisis, and it was both infuriating and embarrassing, and he was looking at her with the same expression one gave to a waiter who came by the table when everyone’s mouths were full.

She had to get out of there. If she didn’t, she was either going to try and claw his eyes out or get down on all fours in the sand and wiggle her ass at Clarke in invitation to just go ahead and mount her there in front of everyone so that there could be no more misconceptions.

“I do know that,” she said, unable to tell if her voice sounded as odd outside of her head as it did inside of it. “It was nice to meet you, Finn.” Her chest was so tight with a mixture of anxiety and unwanted, protective territoriality that it literally hurt to speak; she briefly contemplated the possibility that she was having a coronary catastrophe brought about by a mixture of embarrassment and undignified jealousy. “I’ll leave you and Clarke to catch up.”

Because she was _not_ someone who reverted back to throwback instincts. She _wasn’t_ , never had been, and needed to get out of there before she embarrassed herself further. She was not going to scuffle in the sand with fucking Finn Collins just because he was still a little hung up on Clarke even though _he’d_ been the one who’d cheated, because he wasn’t a threat. He wasn’t going to steal her Alpha away from her, because Clarke wasn’t a thing to be stolen. She wasn’t… _fuck_. All that time spent trying to tell Bellamy Blake that he was more than his stupid biology, and here she was halfway to a catfight with a probably oblivious Finn Collins to prove to him, Clarke, and everyone else in a fifty mile radius that _she_ was the one the Alpha should mount.

It was just… once upon a time, Clarke had loved him. She’d shared a bite with him. She’d thought they were meant for each other, forever, and if Finn Collins hadn’t fucked that up, they’d still be together.

She was halfway to, well, nowhere, when she felt arms wrap around her from behind.

“I love you,” Clarke murmured against the shell of her ear, thumping into her back and driving Lexa two steps forward with her enthusiasm. “There’s no reason for you to be jealous.”

Lexa huffed. “I know,” she said, still furious with herself. Not that Clarke was the kind of person who collected a harem, but even if she had been, Lexa had never seen herself as the kind of person who would find herself itching to fight to keep her place at the top of it.

“Don’t be mad,” Clarke murmured, her tone beguiling. Her fingers were scratching soothingly at Lexa’s belly through the thick knit of her sweater.

As if Clarke was the one who needed to apologize. “I’m not mad at you,” Lexa said with a sigh, tangling her fingers with Clarke’s and tugging her over to a slight rise in the sand. She’d thought it might make an adequate seat, but after pulling Clarke down to join her, she realized it was just as cold and grainy as any other resting place on the beach; it seemed like a perfect metaphor for something, though she didn’t know what.

“I’m mad at me,” she admitted, brushing futilely at the sand that had already adhered to her pants. Clarke’s jeans were suffering as well, especially her knees, and as Lexa reached over to clean the sand away, she became suddenly and bemusedly aware of the tight pull of denim over an apparently excited cock.

Clarke noticed the focus of her gaze and blushed. “Don’t laugh at me,” she said with a scowl, crouching over in an attempt to hide the evidence of her arousal. “It’s your fault.”

“My fault?” Lexa quirked a brow, her hand stilling on Clarke’s knee.

“Are we pretending like that whole thing didn’t happen? You know, where you tried to tell Finn that I was yours and that if he valued retaining his dignity, he’d back off?” Clarke surprised Lexa by throwing a knee over her thighs so that she was straddling her, looming up over her and silhouetted by the moon. “Only you apparently forgot that he couldn’t really smell the claim you were laying on me.”

Lexa, who hadn’t believed that Clarke would call her on it so blatantly, swallowed hard, blushed herself, and looked to the skies.

“But I could. Every other Alpha and Omega at the party could. Everybody knew that you were letting him know that you belong to me.” Clarke’s eyes glinted in the pale moonlight. “Just like I belong to you. So yeah, baby, it’s your fault.”

Lexa wanted to protest that she was having a moment that might possibly be personally defining, and that Clarke shouldn’t be speaking with that low rasp of a voice or looking at her with that particular look in her eye. She wanted to have a calm and rational talk about how the whole episode had been entirely unseemly and should probably be forgotten, because it was mortifying. She was mortified.

“Let’s go somewhere warmer,” Clarke said with an entirely too self-satisfied smirk.

Lexa shivered at the sight of it, whimpered deep in her throat, and nodded.

\------

When she’d been imagining the somewhere warmer Clarke had promised, she hadn’t thought that somewhere would turn out to be Clarke’s childhood bedroom. But it was, and Clarke was settled in between her legs and kissing her deeply, and Lexa was trying not to worry about the fact that Clarke’s disapproving mother was somewhere within the structure.

In retrospect, Clarke’s arousal was not unexpected. A public display of their connection was a Clarke-specific aphrodisiac, and this display had been both very public and very obvious. Embarrassingly public and obvious, but if there was any solace to be found, it was that Lexa was unlikely to see any of those people again. Excepting Bellamy Blake, that was, and if need be, she was willing to blackmail him.

Also embarrassing, and frankly disconcerting, was just how _submissive_ Lexa was feeling. Maybe it was a side effect of metaphorically baring her neck for all to see, but the weight of Clarke on top of her, pushing her down into the bedding, was _doing_ something to her. She couldn’t quite seem to stop moving, arching and rubbing and sliding against Clarke, or running her hands down Clarke’s sides and twining their legs together. She was both completely aware of every slight creak of the bed and completely uncaring. She wanted skin again skin, wanted to lay herself bare and be taken, and she was not really willing to examine it all too closely because the impulse, like everything else that had happened in the past hour, was mortifying.

Clarke moved her kisses to Lexa’s neck and she cried out, absolutely certain that it was too loud but unable to do anything about it. She just… she needed to _belong_ to her. She needed more than the gentle suction on the skin over her pulse point. She needed Clarke’s scent all over her, needed to feel her inside. To have the taste of her thick on her tongue. They’d both slipped out of their heavy sweaters and sand-bedeviled jeans as soon as they’d gotten to Clarke’s room, but there was still too much in the way of Clarke’s skin. So she tugged hard at the thermal Clarke was wearing, being more efficient at conveying her desire to have it off than in actually removing it. The result was Clarke rearing up onto her knees and whipping it over her head, leaving Lexa slack-jawed with arousal, because fuck...

She curled up, driven by a compulsion to _service_ that she didn’t usually feel outside of her heat, and certainly not with the intensity she was feeling it. Clarke’s cock was jutting against the cotton of her boxer-briefs as Lexa’s hand found the waistband, easing it free. Before she could second-guess herself, she’d drawn her tongue across the tip. Above her, Clarke made a noise of surprise mixed with unbridled pleasure. It spurred Lexa on, and soon her hand was stroking the lower part of Clarke’s shaft as she took the upper in her mouth. It still wasn’t something she did with particular frequency, and so it took a little while to find a rhythm. She experimented with suction, with the depth to which she could take Clarke in her mouth, with the bits of flesh that seemed most sensitive under her tongue. She focused in on the way Clarke would jerk against her and the sounds she was making, using each as a guide, until Clarke was mumbling incoherently in between moans. She found Clarke’s hand and brought it down to the top of her head, something inside of her needing to give Clarke the permission to touch in that very, very specific way. She’d never thought she would, had always hated the idea of it – the control it abdicated and casual possessiveness it was rife with – but Clarke was different. Clarke had always been different, since the start, and even in this, she did nothing more than press the tips of her fingers against Lexa’s scalp despite the fact that something deep within Lexa wanted _more_.

“Stop,” Clarke said, some minutes later, barely audible above the sounds Lexa herself was making. “Baby, please. Stop. I’m going to come if you don’t.”

Which was a bit confusing, since that had been Lexa’s goal. Still, she pulled away and looked up to find Clarke looking down at her hungrily. She’d discarded her bra at some point; Lexa licked her lips unconsciously, torn between returning to what she’d been doing or finding some way to bring herself closer to Clarke’s breasts. Moments later, Lexa’s chest was bare as well, and the decision was made for her. Clarke was on top of her and kissing her again; Lexa’s hips canted up, and she was frustrated by the lingering barrier of her panties. She needed Clarke inside of her. Needed so profoundly that she was unable to focus on anything else.

When Clarke’s fingers slid against her, Lexa sighed with relief. She expected the press of her cock to follow, and when it didn’t, Lexa looked at Clarke questioningly. Clarke smiled at her, kissed her, murmured _I want it to be good for you_ , and worked her fingers against Lexa’s clit until Lexa was insensate with it. She dug her fingers into Clarke’s skin, bucked against her, and came with tortured whimper. And it was good, was always good, but she needed more, needed Clarke to be as lost as she was. Somehow, she managed to wrench herself away, sliding onto her belly and pulling her knees up and offering herself as explicitly as she knew how.

“Clarke, _please_.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Clarke did not disappoint. She pulled Lexa’s panties down and off, lined up her cock, and buried herself in Lexa in one unrelenting thrust. She fucked in long, hard thrusts that never faltered, until Lexa collapsed down onto the bed, no longer able to support herself. Clarke followed, digging her teeth into the back of Lexa’s neck as she altered her movement to the new position, short, quick thrusts that had Lexa biting into the pillow to keep from filling the house with her screams. Not that it helped much – the mattress creaked beneath them and the headboard slapped the wall, matching their rhythm. She was distantly aware that there were probably fewer places less well suited to having this particular sort of crisis than Clarke’s childhood bedroom, but there wasn’t exactly anything she could do about it at the moment.

Clarke shifted again, pressing her hand against the back of Lexa’s neck and holding her down as she held herself up to make enough room so that she could pull out nearly all the way before plunging back inside. It reeked of ownership, of possession, of her own subjugation, and it was exactly what Lexa needed. She keened under the tight hold and slid a hand between her legs, needing little more than just a steady pressure against her clit as Clarke fucked her. One, two, three more thrusts and she was gone, body drawing so tight around Clarke that Clarke was helpless to do anything other than follow her.

Her world went black around the edges.

Some time later, after she regained the ability to think, Lexa was mortified to find that she was crying. Clarke had gathered her into her arms at some point, was whispering to her soothingly and brushing away the tears with her fingers and lips, which only made her cry even harder.

“It’s okay,” Clarke said, pressing her face into Lexa’s neck, leaving behind her scent in an attempt to calm.

Had Lexa been in a frame of mind to articulate just why she was curled into Clarke and crying, she would have pointed out that it was both okay and not okay. She would have laid out the conflicting reasons why. _Would you like to understand what it’s like to be me_ , she might have asked Clarke. _Would you like me to tell you about what it’s like to be systematically underestimated and dismissed? To live in a world that saturated me with messages reminding me that I was weak? That thought it was precious that I wanted to be more than a fuck toy and breeding machine? To fear that giving into anything that would paint me as a stereotypical Omega would erase two decades of defining my place in the world instead of having it defined for me? To wait for the world to pack me away in the space it feels I should inhabit, because I can be hypocritical. I can be inconsistent. I can give into those things I shouldn’t want, and when I do, I’m afraid that I’m going to find out that I’m exactly what they’ve always told me I was. To have begged to be mounted and fucked like a desperate, pathetic Omega, because I saw you talking to Finn Collins and needed to remind you why you should want me over him? Needed you to demonstrate just how completely I was yours?_

But how could she say that to Clarke, who had trusted Lexa enough to let her see all of her inconsistencies? Clarke, who was strong and vulnerable at the same time, and no longer afraid to let Lexa in. Who had doubts. Who was imperfect. Who was proud of who she was despite all of that because she had the courage to let Lexa see her as she was. Who had taken the risk, and apparently felt it had been worth it.

And what was she? She was telling Bellamy Blake not to be ashamed of asking for what he needed one moment and then being ashamed of herself for doing that very same thing in the next. More than that, being ashamed that she’d needed it in the first place.

She was a mess, is what she was.

“I’m sorry,” she heard Clarke say, and wondered how long she’d been saying it. “I’m so sorry.”

“No,” she said, because if anything was going to pull her out of the morass, it was going to be the threat of harm to Clarke. Perversely, even if _she_ was the threat. “Don’t be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

It didn’t seem to be enough to provide the comfort she’d intended to give. At some point, Clarke’s impulse to soothe had given way to a frantic need to fix, and apparently she’d decided that her own actions had caused the problem. Her eyes were wide, worried, and she was holding Lexa as if she wasn’t sure she was wanted.

Lexa kissed her, reassuring Clarke in the way she understood best. When Clarke finally relaxed against her, she pulled away, tucked her face into Clarke’s neck, and sighed. “I was just a little overwhelmed.”

“Okay,” Clarke said. She pressed a kiss again Lexa’s forehead, ran her fingers through her hair, and pulled her in close. Then, “Lexa, did I…”

“No,” Lexa said, _needing_ to interrupt Clarke, because nothing could be further from what she suspected Clarke was going to ask. It didn’t matter how that sentence ended: _Did I hurt you? Did I go too far? Did I do something wrong?_ The answer to all was no, and she was angry at herself for making Clarke think it even as she loved Clarke even more for worrying. But Clarke was always making her be _honest_ , even if she’d rather push everything down deep inside and pretend it didn’t exist.

“I was jealous,” she said, pulling away far enough to look Clarke in the eyes, “even though I knew it was stupid, and I was embarrassed. And then I wanted…” she paused, swallowed hard, and felt the heat of her blush stinging the tips of her ears, “exactly what happened to happen. I was as surprised as you were by… afterward.”

Clarke was looking at her in that way she had, as if she was ready to take on the world in Lexa’s defense but just didn’t know where to start. It was softer than it had any right to be. It made Lexa feel like the simple sight of her had answered every question Clarke had ever wanted to ask, and made her wonder how she had managed to stumble upon all of this when she wasn’t even looking.

“Stop it,” Lexa said, feeling the warm comfort of that look unfurl inside of her. With a soft smile on her face, she leaned in for just one more kiss.

\------

Lexa blushed deep red when they walked into the kitchen to find Clarke’s mom leaning against the counter and sipping a cup of coffee, embarrassed on multiple levels and suddenly extremely aware of the bruise Clarke had bitten into the back of her neck the night before. Her inability to have any chill whatsoever about what had happened would have undermined any attempts they might have made to cover up the events of the night before, had Abigail chosen to call them on it, but she didn’t seem in the mood for idle chit-chat or insinuations.

“Good morning, Lexa,” Clarke’s mother said with a smile so frigid that Lexa found herself wishing they were being teased instead. “Clarke, a moment, if you please?”

Despite Clarke’s immediately mulish expression, the refusal Lexa was expecting didn’t come. Instead, she marched off after her mother, shoulders tense and mouth drawn down in a frown. They disappeared into what Lexa presumed was a study, and she wondered if she was just supposed to wait there in the kitchen.

She didn’t.

The thick wooden door did little to stifle the argument. “She’s an Omega, Clarke? What are you thinking?”

“What?” She could hear Clarke’s confusion at the unexpected and immediate offensive, and shared it. “What do you mean?”

There was a moment of tense silence. When Abby Griffin spoke again, Lexa had to take a few steps closer to hear her clearly.

“You’re smarter than this, Clarke,” she said, her voice warm despite the coolness of her words. “You have your whole life in front of you. You can’t afford to let some Omega tie you down.”

Clarke sounded aghast. “Mom? What?”

“She’s pretty,” Abby allowed. “I can see how you could get caught up, but Clarke, sweetie, you know what Omegas are like. How long will it be before she tells you she’s pregnant? How long before she talks you into a bite while you’re in rut, and then what? Do you honestly think you’ll be able to make it through med school with a mate and a child to support?”

“She’s not ‘some Omega’,” Clarke said, her voice strained. “Her name is Lexa, and I love her. She’s smart, Mom, and ambitious, which you’d know if you actually bothered to talk to her before making up your mind about her.” Clarke’s voice edged into a low growl. “If it was up to me, we’d already have shared bites, but she’s not ready and I’m not going to push her. She has plans, and if I’m lucky, I’ll be in them. Her getting pregnant right now wouldn’t just derail my life. It would derail hers. One day, maybe, we might have a family, but it won’t be until it’s right for both of us and that won’t be anytime soon. She’s everything you should want for me. She’s everything _I_ want for me.”

Lexa could hear frustrated patience in Abby’s voice, edged with the patronizing note of someone explaining something they considered a simple, uncomplicated fundamental to someone who just couldn’t seem to grasp it. “Clarke, you’re young. You’re thinking with what’s between your legs, not what’s between your ears. Remember what happened with that Finn boy?” Lexa heard a sigh. When Abby spoke again, it was with unwilling understanding. “Trust me, I know what it’s like with an Omega, but no matter how good the sex is, no matter how good she smells, it’s not enough for you to throw away the rest of your life.”

“Why are you doing this?”

Abby’s voice turned sharp. “I’m trying to look out for you, Clarke. You’re clearly not in the right mind to think about your future. I want more for you than for you to chain yourself to some Omega who’s only going to bring you down.”

“Is that what Dad was? Just some stupid Omega who smelled good? Did he ruin your life, Mom? Did I?”

Clarke sounded both furious and on the verge of tears, and it took an enormous effort of will for Lexa to resist storming in and pulling her out of there.

“I loved your father, but I met him when I was in my residency,” Abby said heatedly. “It’s not the same thing. I was finished with school. I was… Actually, do you know what? Yes, it was hard. He got pregnant on his second heat with me, and it was hard. Do you know what it’s like to work a 36 hour shift and come home to a newborn? I love you, Clarke. I have always loved you, but I won’t pretend that it wouldn’t have been easier if we’d waited to have you.”

“I haven’t seen you in nearly a year and this is how you want things to go?” Lexa could almost imagine the look on Clarke’s face – disbelief, sadness, resignation. “What are you expecting to happen here? For me to agree with you? For me to send Lexa away?”

“I want you to think about what you’re doing. You’re too trusting, Clarke. You have a good heart, and that makes you vulnerable.”

Behind the door, Clarke’s voice had gone cold. “You need to trust that I know what’s best for me.”

“I’m your mother,” Abby ground out. “You can’t expect me to stand by and watch you squander everything. You’re top of your class but you tell me you want to be an OBGYN. That’s beta or omega work, Clarke, and you know it. I allow it because I have faith that you’ll come to your senses, but this… this Omega girl? Her smell is all over you. She’s already got you trapped, and you can’t see it.”

“That’s enough,” Clarke snapped. A moment later Lexa jumped back as the door slammed open.

“Pack your bags, Lexa,” Clarke said, chest heaving in her fury. “We’re leaving.”

Behind her, Abby’s eyes narrowed. “We’re not done here, Clarke.”

“Yes, we are.”

Lexa reached out to pull Clarke to her, but Clarke shook her head. “Pack our things,” she said softly, turning to her mother.

Her instincts told her to stay, to stand by Clarke, but a quick glance from Clarke pleaded with her to do as Clarke had asked. So, against her better judgment, she climbed the stairs and pulled out their suitcases. Luckily, they hadn’t done much in the way of unpacking yet. She raced through the bathroom, collecting bottles and toothbrushes carelessly, sure that they could replace anything that was left behind. The clothes they’d removed she shoved back into place, not bothering to fold them, and had the suitcases closed and in her hands in only a few minutes. She reached the first floor to see Clarke still squaring off with her mother, both of them furious and unwilling to back down.

“I pay your tuition,” Abby was saying. “I pay your rent. I will not have you disrespecting me…”

“Then keep it,” Clarke bit out. “I don’t want your money, not if you think it entitles you to make demands.”

“Clarke,” Lexa said softly, wanting to coax her into leaving before any more damage could be done, “let’s just go.”

“You stay out of this,” Abby hissed. “Just because you get on your knees for my daughter doesn’t give you any right to involve yourself in this.”

Lexa straightened and met her gaze unflinchingly, knuckles white with the strength of her grip on the luggage’s handles. “I think you’ve said enough.”

Abby’s eyes blazed with fury redirected. “Who are you to think you can come between me and my daughter?”

“You did that yourself,” Lexa said with a calm she didn’t feel. “I love Clarke. I don’t want this for her.”

“If you loved her, you’d want what’s best for her.”

“I do. Unlike you, I trust her to know what that is.” She looked over at Clarke, her expression as open as she could make it even as her heart tripped nervously. “If you want me to go, I will. She’s your mother, and I wouldn’t want to come between you, but I won’t abandon you here if that’s not what you want. If you want to stay and try to fix your relationship, you should. I won’t worry because I know you, Clarke. I know there’s nothing your mother could say to change us.”

Clarke’s lids fluttered and a sad smile twisted at her lips.

“Clarke…” Abby began, entreatingly.

“Merry Christmas, Mom,” Clarke said, reaching out for Lexa’s hand as she turned her back on her mother.

Lexa stowed their things while Clarke settled in the passenger’s seat. She started the car, looked one more time at Clarke’s profile, put the car in drive, and twined the fingers of her right hand with Clarke’s left. “Clarke,” she began, but didn’t quite know what to say.

Clarke pressed her forehead against the window. In the reflection, Lexa could see tears coursing down her cheeks silently. “Let’s go home,” she said, voice tight.

So Lexa drove.

\------

The plan had been for Lexa to spend a few days before Christmas with Clarke and her mother before heading to her parents for the rest of the holiday with Clarke staying behind. The plan had not been for Clarke to spend Christmas alone, wrapped up in a blanket in a dark room, and Lexa wasn’t going to allow it. She’d invited Clarke to join her and Clarke had waved her off, staring gloomily at nothing, so Lexa had joined her. If Clarke was going to spend Christmas in the dark in her apartment, then Lexa was going to join her.

“Go,” Clarke said, for perhaps the fifteenth time. “I’m fine here.”

Lexa merely arched a brow. “I’m not fine with you here, so get used to it. You’re stuck with me. You can be stuck with me here or you can be stuck with me at my parent’s. Your choice.”

She’d gone as far as calling her parents and telling them that her plans had changed before Clarke relented. “You’re not missing Christmas because of me,” she said with a scowl, and Lexa tried not to be too pleased with herself as Clarke went off to take a shower. She had their bags packed and in the car by the time Clarke was out under the assumption that it was best not to give her too much time to think.

Clarke’s hair dried into waves on the drive up. The sadness etched into her features didn’t change and Lexa’s heart ached for her. “I’m going to be broke now, you know,” she said, blue eyes following the line of barren trees lining the roadway.

“We’ll make it work,” Lexa said without looking at her, afraid Clarke might balk at the compassion in her gaze.

“Maybe I’ll quit school,” Clarke said bitterly. “That’ll show her, right?”

Lexa’s jaw tightened with anger at Abby for what she’d wrought. “You’re not going to quit school, Clarke. We’ll look into financial aid. It’s going to be fine.”

“I could get a job. Save up for a while, and then go back. Tuition, rent, bills… there’s no way I can cover it all.”

Lexa made a hard right, pulling over to the road’s shoulder. She undid her seat belt and turned to face Clarke, a scowl of her own on her face. “Listen to me, Clarke. We will make this work. If it’s too late to apply for financial aid for this semester, I’ll help you. You’ll find a job and you’ll figure it out. Other people do this. You can too. And, you have me, Clarke. I won’t let this hold you back.”

Clarke’s expression turned stubborn. “I’m not going to take your money, Lexa.”

“We’re in this together, aren’t we?” Lexa asked, pushing down any irritation of her own. “You and me? Maybe have a family of our own one day. Isn’t that what you said?”

There, in front of her eyes, the bitter Clarke melted to be replaced by a slightly terrified one. “You heard that?” she asked, nibbling at the inside of her bottom lip.

“Of course I did,” Lexa said with an exasperated smile. “I was eavesdropping the whole time. I thought you knew that.”

“I didn’t,” Clarke said sheepishly.

“It was difficult not to intervene,” Lexa admitted.

Clarke looked away with a blush. “I guess I should apologize for all of those things my Mom said about Omegas.”

“No, you shouldn’t.” Lexa lifted her chin. “Besides, it’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”

“Still…”

“Let your mom make her own apologies.” She softened. “And let me help, if I can.”

Lexa could see the stubborn refusal in the set of Clarke’s jaw. “At least think about it.”

A silent battle took place between them before Clarke grudgingly acquiesced. “Okay. I’ll think about it,” she said, though she didn’t sound incredibly convincing.

Lexa leaned over and kissed her softly, grinning as Clarke chased after her as she pulled back.

\------

Compared to Clarke’s imposing home, Lexa’s was more like an actual cabin in the woods. It was a comfortable, spacious cabin in the woods with all of the amenities of any normal abode save for reliable high-speed internet, but it was still tucked away at the end of a long, rutted path and surrounded by fir trees. She racked her brain, trying to remember everything she’d told Clarke about her parents to make sure she hadn’t left out anything vital. Clarke knew the basics – her dad, Nyko, was a nurse at a nearby hospital and her mom, Luna, was a fish and game warden. They’d been married since forever, hadn’t been able to have kids of their own, and had adopted.

“Just remember,” she said as they pulled up to the house, “Dad is the pacifist. Mom is the scary one. She seems like she wouldn’t be, but she is. She’s like Anya, only she can actually make you believe that she’s harmless. And she is, mostly, but still. Of the two, she’s the dangerous one.”

Anya, as they both knew, could not generally pull off harmless. She was more of a softie than she’d ever admit, but on the surface at least, Anya spent most of her time looking like she was on the verge of cutting someone.

Before they could climb the porch steps, the door burst open and a solid hunk of a man had Lexa in his arms, lifting her off the ground. “Dad,” Lexa whined, clearly embarrassed, as the man put her down with a kiss to the forehead.

“Hush,” he said, wrapping his arm around Lexa’s shoulders in an inescapable hug. “Who’s your friend?”

“My girlfriend, Dad. Clarke.”

Clarke was giving her father a hesitant smile. “Nice to meet you, sir.”

He regarded her silently for a moment. Lexa was on the verge of elbowing him in his side because the last thing Clarke needed was more parental disapproval, when his face broke out in a grin. “Clarke,” he said, reaching out to shake her hand. “Nice to meet you, too. Anya says you’re not so bad.”

“She did?” Clarke blinked, dumbfounded.

Her dad clapped Clarke on the back, nearly causing her to stumble. “Luna’s not here at the moment, but I know she’s looking forward to meeting you. Come on. Raven and Anya are making hot chocolate. Well, Raven is. Anya always has trouble with the ratios. It’s either too much chocolate or too much milk, but don’t tell her I told you that.”

Clarke’s clearly apparent befuddlement only intensified.

They’d only been in the kitchen long enough to receive hugs when Clarke took Raven’s hand in hers with a surprised, “Raven?” Lexa looked over, suspicious, and holy shit. That was an engagement ring. She looked back at Anya and got a smirk and a shrug and in the end, her dad ended up having to save the hot chocolate from scalding.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” Lexa said, scandalized, as she took in Anya’s matching ring. “How long have you been planning this?”

Anya looked affronted. “Who says it was me who asked?”

“Didn’t you?”

“I was going to,” Anya said with a mock scowl in Raven’s direction, “but someone found the rings.”

“They were in your tee shirt drawer,” Raven said with a mock scowl of her own. “It wasn’t like I was looking for them. I was putting away the laundry. Doing you a favor.”

“I was going to do it on Christmas Eve, under the stars,” Anya grumbled. “It was going to be romantic. I had plans.”

“How did it really go?” Clarke asked.

“She yelled out _Anya, what are these_ , and I find her with the rings.”

“And I said that one of them had better be for me,” Raven added. “She said yes and I figured we were pretty much engaged, so I put it on.”

Lexa rolled her eyes at them. “It’s a story to warm the heart.”

“Kind of like the story of how you two met,” Anya shot back, her smile distinctly sharkish.

“How did you meet?” her dad asked from where he was pulling coffee mugs from the cupboards, and Lexa flushed even as she smacked Anya on the arm.

“Clarke is Raven’s roommate,” she said from behind clenched teeth. “Anya introduced us.”

She looked to Clarke for help, but found her unhealthily pale.

Her dad hmphed and shot her a suspicious look, but didn’t otherwise press it. “If you’re not helping me cook, you’re in the way,” she said, shooing them out of the kitchen. “Your mom should be home by 6.”

\------

All in all, Lexa considered the evening a success. Her mom did spend an uncomfortable amount of time assessing Clarke while sawing into her pork chop, but Clarke survived. There was no talk of Clarke’s late addition to their number; Lexa had texted the basics to Anya and Raven and given her parents a very brief sketch, which meant that dinner conversation was primarily confined to safe, neutral topics. Anya and Raven had already been there for two days so news of their engagement was no longer new, and her mom had managed to confine herself to stories about hapless hunters as opposed to probing questions, though Lexa didn’t hold out hope that it would last for their entire visit. After there was more hot chocolate, this time heavily fortified with Bailey’s, and Lexa somehow found herself wrapped up in blankets and sharing the porch swing with Anya while Raven monopolized Clarke in the much warmer living room.

“Alright,” Anya said as soon as they were settled, “spill.”

“No, this is your day,” Lexa protested, giving a push with her foot to set the swing in motion. “Engaged, huh? I’m happy for you.”

Anya stared at her silently until Lexa suddenly and definitively broke.

“I didn’t even spend 24 hours in that town, Anya,” she said with a helpless shake of the head. “I met Clarke’s ex-boyfriend and lost my mind. We did things in her childhood bed that no childhood bed should ever have to see. I had a breakdown. Her mother said I was ruining Clarke’s life before we could even have breakfast. They had a huge fight and now she’s not going to support Clarke anymore. I cried. Clarke cried. It was…” she ran out of steam and shrugged, hoping it conveyed the baffling rapidity in which so many, many things had happened.

Anya absorbed it all stoically. “Are you okay?”

“I mean, I would have preferred for things to have gone differently. I would have preferred it if Clarke’s mother didn’t think I was an opportunistic Omega slut conniving my way into saddling her daughter with fifteen kids. I would have preferred it if she hadn’t essentially told Clarke she thought she was wasting her life and letting slip that Clarke was an inconvenient accident. That would have been a better outcome, yes.”

“And this ex-boyfriend?”

“Is nothing. Clarke has no interest. I was being jealous and stupid.”

Anya took over the next push.

“I’m here for you,” Anya said quietly, slipping her arm around Lexa’s shoulders. “Whatever you need. Clarke too, since you seem to think she’s worth it.”

Lexa’s chest tightened uncomfortably as she laid her head on Anya’s shoulder. “Yeah?” she said, her voice breaking even as she tried to keep things light. “How about a job? Clarke’s going to be looking.”

Anya laughed, giving them another push. “At the gym? That could be entertaining.”

Lexa gave her a chastising nudge.

“I couldn’t schedule her when you’re there for a class. Someone would probably fall and break a leg in the puddle of drool she’d leave behind.”

“True,” Lexa said, unable to stifle a grin. She gave Anya another nudge, already feeling steadier knowing she had her support. “Anyway, you’re engaged. I’m going to be maid of honor, right?”

Anya groaned. “Why won’t anyone wait to let me ask first?”

“Are we wearing suits or dresses?”

“Maybe I was going to ask Lincoln.”

“You were going to ask me. I saved you the trouble.”

Anya stood, taking the blankets with her. “You’re nothing _but_ trouble. Have been since the day I met you.” She held out a hand to help Lexa up and let the momentum carry them into a hug. “Come on. We can’t leave our girls alone for too long. Mom might get to one of them.”

“Raven, hopefully,” Lexa said, pulling Anya in tight for a long, comforting moment. “I tried to warn her, but Clarke would wildly overestimate her ability to deal with Mom.”

Anya pulled away gently and scoffed. “The last time Mom cornered Raven, we didn’t have sex for a week. Raven was terrified.”

Lexa startled in alarm, ignoring Anya’s following laughter as she hurried inside.

Together, they stumbled back into the house to find Raven and Clarke locked in a hug, both of them with tears in their eyes, and their mom thankfully nowhere in sight.

\------

Clarke snuggled into her back, tucking her knees against the bend of Lexa’s. “I’m glad we came,” she said, nosing through Lexa’s hair to place a kiss on the fading bite-shaped bruise she’d left at the nape of Lexa’s neck.

She shifted onto her side so she could look up at Clarke. “My home is your home, Clarke. My family is your family.”

Clarke nodded, her already blood-shot eyes going glassy. Lexa reached over, gently pulling Clarke’s head down to rest on her shoulder, and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“Unless you don’t want Anya. I wouldn’t blame you.”

She grinned as she felt Clarke laugh against her, pulling her in tight.


	9. Objectively Horrible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Updates on Clarke's new job, Bellamy's situation, and Abby's cantankerousness. Basically, Lexa panics a lot. 
> 
> Be warned - there is relatively little sex herein. I don't know what went wrong. (Actually I do. It didn't fit here, so I excised it for later.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to get this out of my drafts. I just couldn't stare at it any longer.

Clarke had taken to swaggering. She’d picked it up at Grind, where Anya had been true to her word and had stationed a freshly employed Clarke at the front desk. Then again, picked it up wasn’t quite right. It had seeped into her, gaining strength with every tight tee shirt Clarke wore. She’d taken to those too, GRIND stretched tautly across her breasts in white or pink or red against a black cotton background.

It was _distracting_.

Anya was smugly pleased, as if she’d seen something hidden within Clarke that pointed to _front desk clerk at a gym_ genius buried within her, having apparently blocked from her mind sitting in a swing on their parents’ front porch and offering to support Lexa – and by extension Clarke – however she could. Then again, Clarke _had_ singlehandedly increased gym membership by 5% in her first three months, luring her fellow ex-classmates from ABC Bootcamp who then lured others. Anya had leaned hard into the suddenly unveiled market of anxious Alphas with esteem issues, creating a line of _Pack_ classes designed specifically for the less than confident and steadfastly ignoring Lexa’s scowls and muttered comments because honestly. _Pack_.

She’d also managed to create a bottleneck around the front desk area, becoming something of a living checkpoint for a steady flow of members. Doe-eyed gym rat Alphas leaned against the counter, debating the merits of various protein shakes and bemoaning the seductive call of carbs. Doe-eyed Omegas lingered long enough to catch a smile they were sure was meant only for them. Doe-eyed Betas tried to trade jokes and leaned over the counter, phones out and navigating to some new internet wonder as they said fervently, “You’ve got to see this.” And Clarke didn’t exactly encourage it but she didn’t discourage it either, adapting to the role of confidant and object of infatuation as if she’d been born to it.

It had taken some adaptation on Lexa’s part, too. She found the swagger more appealing than she’d like to admit and certainly enjoyed the uptick in tight tee shirts, but the seemingly endless parade of fawning patrons wanting a splinter of Clarke’s attention had encroached on the sanctity of her patience. Clarke always noticed and looked at her fondly, vehement in her protests that it was only because she was new and that anyways, there was just something about the gym. It was a stew of pheromones, she claimed, born of people sweating out their aggression and occasionally appreciating the miles of uncovered, glistening, and flexing muscles. And that was all well and good and possibly even correct, but Lexa still had to resist the urge to roll her eyes whenever she’d come by for a class to find the front desk festooned with admirers.

It helped that Clarke’s face would light up at the sight of her. She’d smile the smile no one but Lexa received, greet her with a husky _hey, baby_ , and the hopeful would lose hope. Clarke insisted that Lexa was exaggerating, that this horde of enamored Omegas, Betas, and even the odd Alpha didn’t exist, but Lexa suspected Clarke wasn’t that oblivious. If she didn’t see them it was because she chose not to see them, and Lexa was okay with that.

Clarke had also taken to working out with Lincoln after her shift, hitting the weights or hitting pads before getting in a little cardio. It made things difficult for Lexa when they happened to be exercising at the same time. She adored Clarke’s determined scowl. She adored the way Clarke’s breasts bounced in concert with her footfalls when she was on the treadmill. She adored Clarke sweaty and grinning, with her hands wrapped and on her hips as she joked with Lincoln after a couple of rounds with the pads. Anya had teased about the puddles of drool Clarke would leave all over her gym at the sight of Lexa being fierce, but apparently hadn’t foreseen Lexa’s complete inability to maintain her calm at the sight of Clarke doing the same.

It was embarrassing. Anya had caught her losing the thread entirely in the middle of a kickboxing class, standing there stupefied as she watched Clarke in the large mirror that lined the entire front and side walls. Lexa wanted to protest – Clarke had pulled the hem of that incredibly tight tee up to wipe the sweat off of her face, high enough that she could clearly see the valley between her breasts – and so maybe she’d stopped dead still in the middle of class. She’d simply been caught off guard. She was a normal human being and she had weaknesses and she shouldn’t be mocked for them. She certainly shouldn’t be mocked for them by _Anya_ , who had spent a full nine _weeks_ panicking over what to wear in her wedding.

“We both know I look good in dresses,” she had said to Lexa, scrolling fretfully through an image search of wedding wear. “Tuxes… ugh. Raven would look great in a tux. She has the boobs for it. I’d look like a plank of wood playing dress-up.”

Anya had never been one to obsess over her appearance. She either wore work-out attire or managed to look effortlessly stunning, so to hear her doing so was… disconcerting.

“Vests? I’m great with vests. The tighter the better. But they seem too informal, don’t they?” She’d looked at Lexa as if Lexa should have the answer to this quandary, as if she’d somehow magically absorbed the wisdom and insight of an uptight mistress of protocol who also happened to know a lot about bridal fashions.

“I bet you can make vests fancy enough for a wedding,” was all Lexa had had to offer, but Anya had taken it like a lifeline.

So no, someone who kept asking Lexa to look at and offer her opinion on examples of various pinstripe widths with a look of trepidation that would be better suited to someone in the midst of averting a nuclear disaster had no business teasing her about _anything_.

Not that it was all lusty, sweaty moments and poorly hidden appreciation gilding the brief moments of jealousy she tried very hard not to have. Only the week before, Clarke had scowled at a frozen pizza Lexa had thrown into their grocery cart before returning it to the freezer with a shake of the head. “Baby,” she’d said imploringly, “did you see the protein to fat ratio? It’s obscene.”

Lexa didn’t love that part, but then again, that week had also seen her find the fortitude to lean back against the headboard and watch when Clarke said she wanted to ride Lexa’s cock. She’d even managed to do it without succumbing to the urge to roll them over and hook her arms under the back of Clarke’s knees, though the notion had been tempting. And that… that had more than made up for her new lack of frozen pizzas and the increasing proportion of the fridge dedicated to protein shakes. It wasn’t even the new definition Clarke had gained, which Lexa appreciated, but instead the way it seemed to take forever for her to tire. She hadn’t thought to look at the clock, and it wasn’t as if she’d been disappointed with Clarke’s stamina before, but that evening Clarke had ground against her and rolled her hips and flexed her thighs as she’d worked Lexa’s cock until Lexa had been delirious with the sight of her. She’d always appreciated the appeal of the position, and knew that Clarke got a little slack-jawed when Lexa was the one on top, so there was absolutely nothing wrong with being mesmerized. How was she supposed to be anything else, especially when Clarke threw back her head and Lexa was left with the sight of her with her hair streaming down her back and her neck bare and begging for her teeth?

When Clarke plastered herself against Lexa, moaning into the curve of her neck and shuddering in her arms? Lexa didn’t hate it, was all she was saying. As for the rest of it, she could adjust.

\------

She’d gone to bed at 7 in the evening, and it was fine. Midterms made her feel like she like she was going to trip from early 20s to late 40s over the course of one week of anyway, and when she was actually in her late 40s, it would probably be completely normal to be in bed before the sun even set because she’d actually be just as old and tired as she currently felt. She’d had maybe a combined 12 hours of sleep over the past 4 days and had been living on caffeine and regular injections of sugar for short-term bursts of energy for most of it. The lack of sleep and the excess of stimulants had left her jittery and caught in that state that wasn’t quite sleep but wasn’t quite consciousness, where everything might be a hallucination or might be real. Had she actually managed to bring about world peace? It kind of felt like it; her possibly real/possibly hallucinated talks with several world leaders had gone remarkably well. Honestly, it was for the best that she’d gone ahead and gotten nuclear disarmament out of the way, because it was only one of the many things she was going to have to tackle.

The soft snick of the door opening pulled her halfway from half-sleep and into the confusion of half-awake. She tried to ascertain the time without moving, because she’d managed to create for herself a comfy nest of pillows and blankets warmed to exactly the right temperature. Squinting and hazarding her best guess landed her somewhere around 11; it was later than she’d expected for Clarke, who had an early morning shift at the gym the next day. Then again, Clarke had also elected to take General Physics II that semester, which sounded horrible and hard and occasionally resulted in study groups that stretched well into the night. But no; Clarke had taken her GenPhys midterm the day before and celebrated with a 3 hour nap on the couch that Lexa had observed jealously from behind the screen of her laptop. Clarke had been – and now she remembered – watching tv on mute when Lexa had trudged past in a zombie-like beeline from front door to bed after handing in her last essay.

She could hear the rustle of clothes in the background – the muted rasp of a zipper, the gentle thud of fabric hitting the laundry basket, and the muted moan of relief that she knew accompanied the shedding of a bra. A hint of cool air drifted in as the covers were moved, and the bed dipped slightly as Clarke curled up behind her and wrapped her arm tight around Lexa’s waist. “I love you,” she said softly, and Lexa wondered if Clarke thought she was asleep. The way she said it made it sound like a secret, like something she’d share with the dark and the silence but not with the girl who already knew it to be true. Then, she heard the hitch of breath and felt Clarke’s forehead press softly against the base of her neck, wet eyelashes fluttering against her skin, and oh _fuck_. Clarke was _crying_.

Lexa froze; she wondered if maybe it’d be better if she pretended she was asleep, if she let Clarke have this moment, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t think of Clarke crying silently and do anything other than roll to face her, pull her into her arms, and press kisses into her hair.

“I’m sorry,” Clarke murmured wetly, wiping furiously at her eyes. “Just ignore this, okay. My mom’s birthday is coming up and I was thinking about it and I…” She swallowed hard and dug her face into Lexa’s neck. “Go back to sleep. Please.”

A suddenly very awake Lexa didn’t know whether to feel fury or panic. She didn’t think fury would help. What would she do? Go on a diatribe about how Clarke shouldn’t have to apologize just for feeling emotions? That she was entitled to them and that they didn’t make her weak or silly or a burden or whatever it was she was thinking? Clearly the least appropriate response to her girlfriend’s crushing sense of loss and betrayal would be to shake her fists menacingly at the world, or maybe just shake them at Abigail Griffin, because that would surely result in meaningful change. Or, she could panic, because what if she hadn’t been there? What if Clarke had to go through it alone? Just the thought made her heart seize. Clarke was a fully functional adult with survival and coping skills and would have made it through this with or without her there, but the thought of Clarke crying alone had sympathetic tears streaming down her face.

What had love _done_ to her?

She’d been just fine going about her business absent any emotional entanglements, and now: her girlfriend was crying silently in her arms; she was contemplating a vicious revolt against an oppressively toxic culture; she was strongly considering a vendetta against disappointing parental units; she was on the verge of tears because _what if a world existed where she didn’t even know_ (and even the possibility made her chest _ache_ ); and, she was whispering soothing words of comfort while simultaneously ready to fucking fight someone because it was the best she could manage at the moment.

There was no instruction manual. She fixed problems, always had, and now… How was she supposed to fix heartbreak?

The possibility existed that she couldn’t, that she had to wait it out, but that was intensely unsatisfying. She was going to make a plan, and until she’d worked the kinks out of said plan, she was going to give Clarke so much support. _So much._ She was going to love her so fucking fiercely that Clarke’s troubles cowered at the thought of her. She was going to make heartbreak _pay_.

And as if Clarke knew, she drifted off to sleep in Lexa’s arms and Lexa cradled her and dared the universe to upset the beautiful, darling creature under her protection even one more time.

She was maybe experiencing these emotions a little violently and perhaps confronting fear and uncertainty with metaphorical fists swinging, but damn it all to hell, it was unacceptable. She’d fallen in love without intending to, but now that she had, Clarke was _hers_. The universe had given her this lovely, sensitive, occasionally blundering temptress who had 15 pairs of sweatpants, wore underwear with superheroes on them, and had real trouble keeping her hands off Lexa’s ass, and curses upon everyone who had made her cry. She’d watched Clarke try to rearrange her finances after the debacle of the holidays, and had to blink back tears as Clarke fretted over whether or not she could afford to keep her weekly geek-out session/coffee date with Indra – hands down the biggest badass and all-around misanthrope in Lexa’s program. Clarke had somehow managed to befriend _Indra_ , who seemed just as perplexed by her tolerance of Clarke as Lexa had been by her own during the first several months they’d dated. And now the universe wanted to make her sad?

_Fuck that._

“Hey,” Clarke said, voice scratchy with sleep. “Did you have a nightmare? Your heart is racing.”

Lexa forced herself to not wrap Clarke up in crushing bear hug. “I’m fine,” she whispered fiercely. “You’re going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“Yeah, ‘course baby.” Clarke nodded against her chest, already halfway asleep again, and Lexa felt unaccountably triumphant.

\------

Bellamy Blake was sleeping on their couch. He’d shown up drunk and teary, had a long talk with Clarke, and hadn’t left.

And it was _their_ couch. There’d been a bit of an unofficial switch-around, because the drifting back and forth from one apartment to the next had become entirely too cumbersome after Anya and Raven’s engagement. Everyone’s lease was locked in until summer; there was no talk of breaking them since none of them had money they could afford to set on fire. Instead, Raven moved in with Anya and Lexa moved in with Clarke, with Raven assuming the slightly higher rent Lexa had been paying. They’d decided to sort out the redistribution of furniture, bedding, and appliances when the leases officially came to an end, because it seemed excessive to move anything more than immediate necessities. It was accomplished easily, without mess, but with a fair bit of unexpressed terror on Lexa’s part because _holy shit_ , they were living together.

But, she digressed. The point was, _Bellamy Blake_ _was sleeping on their couch_.

“I’ve been such a crappy friend,” Clarke murmured later that night as she laid out the particulars of the whole affair.

Bellamy had decided – and Lexa fervently hoped she hadn’t played a role in it – that his relationship with Echo was suffering from a lack of ultimatums. Come clean to your family about us or there is no more us, he’d told her, clearly confident he’d win that match-up. He had not. Shocked and adrift, he’d decided to get over Echo by getting on top of pretty much any eligible Omega he found. Now he had a grainy black and white sonogram picture from an Omega named Gina who he’d apparently spent a productive three days with some six odd weeks before, an existential crisis, and a paralyzing fear of the future.

“He said she gave him the picture, said ‘so this happened’, and told him to come find her if he ever got his act together,” Clarke said, clearly feeling a bit of sympathetic terror.

It – meaning Bellamy’s impending fatherhood – had been the result of a confluence of a mild case of strep throat, an interaction between antibiotics and birth control rendering the latter ineffective, and an oncoming heat.

Lexa had to admit that it gave her a rampant case of sympathetic terror as well.

From what Clarke told her, Bellamy was of the staunch opinion that he was not in any way or shape ready to be a father. Conversely, he was also of the staunch opinion that he was damned well going to be the best one he could manage.

She hoped the whole thing wasn’t as destined for failure as it sounded.

Some days later, Lexa, who had been avoiding the situation as best she could a situation currently residing in her living room, made the unfortunate, sleep-deprived choice to grab a late-night snack. She was half-way through a paper that was due in two days, and the sheer amount of material she’d been expected to cover for it was soul crushing. Between that and her still as yet intangible plan to bring the universe to its knees for hurting Clarke’s feelings, she forgot about Bellamy. Just totally and completely forgot about him.

“Hey,” he said sheepishly as she punched numbers into the microwave. She yelped, spun, and brought a hand to her chest, ready to yell at him for shaving at least a year off of her life when she saw just how miserable he looked. He had dark circles under his eyes and his hair was uncharacteristically lank; she automatically filled another mug with water to be heated for tea because she could already see where this was going.

“Thanks,” he said a few minutes later, one big hand wrapped around the far too hot ceramic mug. “And thanks for letting me crash here. There’s a lot going on, you know, and I wanted…”  He looked down at his mug despairingly and Lexa began to panic because he was blinking rapidly and his lashes were gleaming with tears and she absolutely did not know how to handle it. “I don’t even really know my dad, you know? He took off before I was even born. All these kids in movies with deadbeat dads at least get birthday cards or something, but all I got was the occasional child support check. Same with O’s dad.”

Lexa had picked up on bits and pieces of Bellamy’s history but had never thought she’d be sitting at a table in the middle of the night discussing it with the man himself.

“Shit,” he continued, running a hand through his hair roughly, “what do I do now? Do I marry her? I’m gonna take care of my kid, Lexa.”

She was pretty sure he’d already had this talk with Clarke at least seven times, but she supposed she could forgive him a little indecision. Having just recently watched Clarke’s life fall apart first hand, she was growing accustomed to feeling more empathy than usual.

“My birth parents gave me up for adoption,” she said, catching and holding his gaze; there was something about Bellamy that made that kind of connection necessary. In the few moments they’d shared – the times when he’d mystifyingly decided to open up to her – something in his manner screamed to be reassured that he was being taken seriously. “I don’t know why. I don’t know anything about them. I have to think they made the best choice they could for all of us. If I could go back and change things, I don’t think I would. My parents, the ones that raised me – they love me. I have never doubted that.” She shrugged and smiled ruefully, well past the seductive pull of _what ifs_. “There’s no one way to make a family. At least, I don’t think there is. If you love this girl and want to marry her and she wants to marry you, then marry her. I don’t think it’s a prerequisite, though.”

He nodded, brow furrowed, and rubbed his hand over the scratch of four day old stubble. “Yeah. Yeah.”

“If I was Gina,” she said, feeling oddly vulnerable at even the thought of being in the other Omega’s shoes, “I would want to know I wasn’t alone. I would appreciate knowing that I’d have support. I can’t speak for her, but I think I’d appreciate knowing that support didn’t come with strings attached.”

His eyes snapped up, expression suddenly wary. “What does that mean?”

“It means that the fact that you knocked her up doesn’t give you the right to storm into her life and start throwing your weight around.” She resisted the urge to roll her eyes because bless him, he was trying. “Give her space to tell you what she wants and needs. Trust me, it’ll go better.”

He nodded sagely, and Lexa had the suspicion that he was filing that away as _Omega insider knowledge_ or some such nonsense, but she was less bothered by it than usual. It was probably the exhaustion talking, because she was absolutely not growing even the smallest bit fond of Bellamy Blake.

“Yeah,” he said, raising his mug halfway to his mouth and taking in a deep breath. “Yeah.”

“You might want to shower first.” She looked him over, her disapproval mostly mocking. “And shave.”

He rolled his eyes at her but looked unaccountably lighter, and Lexa knew, _just knew_ , there were going to be baby shower games in her future.

\------

Some days later, they were sitting on their newly reclaimed couch when Clarke said, “I think I’m going to change my major.”

Lexa went still, afraid that any movement on her part would spook Clarke because this seemed like the kind of casual admission that wasn’t casual at all, and she was learning how to make those seem like no big deal. “To what?” she asked, pleased that her voice sounded level.

“Biomedical sciences.” Clarke twisted, throwing a leg over Lexa’s thighs and pulling herself into Lexa’s lap. Lexa wasn’t sure it was the best position for having a serious discussion about the future because it essentially locked her line of sight on Clarke’s chest, and she was woman enough to admit in the privacy of her own mind that her IQ was inversely proportional to the distance between her attention and Clarke’s breasts. This seemed important. She could look away. Focus on Clarke’s face. She _could_. “I was talking to my advisor. It’s pretty much the same as a Bio major, but with broader application.”

It seemed like there was more, so Lexa waited as patiently as she could manage, eyes occasionally drifting down as far as Clarke’s clavicle before she caught them.

“And,” Clarke said, playing with one of Lexa’s curls, “if I take a couple of extra classes, I can get certified to teach pretty much any high school science class.” She chanced a glance up, clearly gauging Lexa’s expression, and Lexa desperately hoped that it read supportive.

“Do you want to teach?”

Clarke shrugged. “I don’t know, but I think it’s good to have a back-up plan. I’ve been thinking that I might wait a year before applying to med school.” She smiled hesitantly, shyly. “I think I need to figure out if I really want to go, or if I’ve been following in my mom’s footsteps because it seemed like what I was supposed to do. Maybe I could teach for a year and see what it’s like.”

“I think you should do whatever makes you happy,” Lexa said honestly.

“So I should do you then?”

“That was horrible. Objectively horrible."

“But true,” Clarke murmured, sliding her hand up to cup the back of Lexa’s neck. She scratched lightly and Lexa felt her spine melt. “Anyway, it might not be so bad to be a teacher. I’d have holidays and summers off. I could take care of the kids while you’re off at your important job saving the world." 

This time, Lexa froze for an entirely different reason.

“I don’t mean next year,” Clarke said, fondly exasperated, and Lexa had to wonder just how wide-eyed she looked. “In five years or ten years or whenever we’re ready. Don’t hyperventilate.”

Clarke always sounded so _certain_. Sometimes Lexa remembered that she’d only really known Clarke for less than a year, though her next heat would roughly mark their anniversary. At least, she guessed it was their anniversary – a year since she’d opened her door to see Clarke standing on the other side, playing nervously with her zipper and on what she believed to be a mission of dick-giving mercy. And now Clarke was looking at her like Lexa hung the moon in the sky just for her, talking about the future and kids.

 _Kids_. Little mixed up versions of the two of them, and she had to be closer to her heat than she thought because she kind of wanted to see what Clarke’s mischievous grin looked like on a tiny face.

“You wouldn’t be disappointed, right?” Clarke sounded like she was trying really hard to come off as teasing but was actually terrified, and Lexa’s attention snapped back into focus. “There’s a pretty big difference between dating a future doctor and dating a future high school teacher.”

Lexa could see where this was going, down a spiral of self-doubt and self-recriminations. As if she cared about Clarke’s future earning potential or whatever it was Clarke had managed to convince herself was a possible fatal mark against her desirability as a partner. She wrapped her arms around Clarke’s waist and sighed out her frustration with the world in general. “No,” she said, rubbing her thumb against Clarke’s lower back through the soft cotton of her shirt. “I wouldn’t be disappointed.”

“It’s not definite,” Clarke rushed to reassure her, or maybe rushed to reassure herself. “I’d still have all my pre-reqs for med school, and it would only add a semester, tops, if I started integrating the extra classes now.”

“You don’t have to sell me on it, Clarke. I’m already convinced. It sounds like you’ve put a lot of thought into it, and I trust you.”

Clarke gave a one-shouldered, diffident shrug. “Being a doctor… it always seemed inevitable. I don’t know why.” Her hand slid down from Lexa’s neck and tangled in her loose curls. “Mom would let me play with her stethoscope and Dad always let me put on all of his band-aids, and that’s what it was. I was going to be the next Dr. Griffin. Everybody thought that. Even me. I think I could be good at it, but Lexa… First it’s med school, then it’s an internship, then it’s residency, and then it’s a fellowship. I’d be in my mid-thirties before I even managed to start making more than minimum wage for all the hours I’d have to put in.”

It _did_ sound like a lot, but Lexa figured she could save the rational analysis for a less emotionally charged moment.

“My dad was 42 when he died.” Clarke sighed, shoulders slumping, and Lexa tightened her hold on Clarke’s hips, suddenly hyperalert. “You think you have forever until all of a sudden, you don’t. I think I need to figure out if it’s really my dream, and if it is, do I still want it.”

Lexa’s mind was filled with pictures of a tiny, serious little Clarke performing life and death surgery on her stable of stuffed animals, her mother’s stethoscope pressed to their cottony hearts. She imagined Jake Griffin holding still as Clarke smoothed down the edges of a band-aid with studious care, and Abby Griffin examining her work with her professionally exacting standards only slightly lowered before declaring it perfect. Whether or not it had actually happened, she wanted it to be the kind of memory Clarke could hold dear.

“There’s no rush, Clarke,” she said, hoping her expression conveyed staunch support instead of the mess of feelings swirling inside her. “You’ll figure it out. I have faith in you.”

Clarke kissed her, and it was soft and sweet. Lexa took it as confirmation that she hadn’t screwed that up entirely, and let Clarke push her back against the couch.

\------

The knock came when she was least expecting it, in the sense that she hadn’t ever expected it to come.

Lexa was lounging on the couch, half paying attention to the tv and drowsy and comfortable in a tank top and Clarke’s purloined and slightly infamous Star Wars boxer briefs, when a sharp rap at the door startled her into awareness. She jumped, looked left and right, verified she was still alone in the apartment, and cautiously straightened in her seat. She wasn’t expecting any deliveries or any guests, and couldn’t remember the last time someone who didn’t already have a key had shown up at her apartment for any other reason. The remaining options were grim: serial killer with a flat tire who needed to use her phone or a multi-level marketer in such dire straits they’d resorted to door-to-door.

One look through the peephole proved it was much, much worse than she’d imagined.

“Just a minute,” she said, rushing back to her room to locate some pants because Abigail Griffin was waiting on her doorstep. In less than 90 seconds, she pulled on a pair of jeans over the boxer briefs, located a bra, and managed to shoot off an SOS text to Anya to give Clarke a head’s up in case her mother was still around when her shift ended. She stopped just shy of the door to smooth down her hair and calm her breathing, unwilling to give Abby anything other than her composed best.

Unable to think of anything else she could do to avoid the inevitable, she opened the door. For a moment, they assessed one another from opposite sides of the door frame. Lexa entertained fantasies of delivering cutting diatribes that made Abby cry in shame or of a swifter retribution delivered via a punch square to the nose, but as satisfying as either might be, they weren’t likely to make the situation any better.

“I’d like to speak with Clarke,” Abby said finally, breaking their growing stalemate.

“She’s at work.”

She’d been hoping it would be enough to end the conversation, but Abby squared her jaw and nodded tightly, as if reformulating her battle plan. “Perhaps I could wait,” she said, already stepping inside before Lexa could agree, disagree, or slam the door in her face. She brushed past Lexa with a definite air of inconvenience and settled stiffly on the couch Lexa had been lazing on only moments before in blissful ignorance of what was to come. Lexa debated disappearing to the bedroom, making up a clearly transparent lie as a pretense to flee, against the much less appealing option of joining Abby in uncomfortable silence.

“Can I get you anything?” she offered, finding herself constitutionally incapable of hiding or fleeing.

Abby demurred and, with the bare minimum of pleasantries out of the way, silence settled over them thickly.

Abby’s eyes moved over everything in the room as if it was her first time seeing it. Lexa didn’t think that was the case, but then again, Abby hadn’t visited in the entire time she’d known Clarke so perhaps it was. She took in a framed pencil-sketch – one of Clarke’s – and the ridiculously hearty cactus that had apparently survived without any care whatsoever before Lexa arrived. Lexa watched her as closely and inconspicuously as possible, measuring every small variation in her expression and trying to puzzle out what it might mean. Her brows narrowed at the sight of some of Lexa’s books stacked neatly on the coffee table. Lexa hadn’t left many touches on their shared living space, but Abby seemed to identify each and every one of them. She studied the picture of Lexa and Anya at Anya’s graduation, a little 5x7 printed out and put in a tasteful frame. Her eyes caught on Lexa’s shoes by the door, straightened neatly, and even the hoodie draped over a chair which Lexa had essentially stolen away from Clarke, as if she could somehow sense the change in ownership.

Then, there was the way she looked at Lexa, with her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flaring, as if drawing in the way her scent was infused with Clarke’s was high-test fuel for her anger. Not that Lexa wasn’t already ridiculously self-conscious about being only a handful of days away from her heat and locked in an apartment with her girlfriend’s Alpha mother. It was awkward. Incredibly awkward. She was wearing Clarke’s stolen underwear, for fuck’s sake.

“Where’s Raven?” Abby asked, couching suspicion under a thin veneer of social convention.

Lexa took a moment to gather herself, since the battle had apparently commenced. “She doesn’t live here anymore,” she said, refusing to look away from Abby. As uncomfortable as it might be to engage in continuous eye contact, she wasn’t going to allow the impression that she was in any way cowed. “She’s engaged now and wanted to live with her fiancée.”

“And you moved in,” Abby concluded. “How convenient.”

“It was, actually. Raven is engaged to my sister, who I used to live with. Now she lives with her and I live with Clarke.”

There was a wiry tension in Abby. She looked on the edge of unraveling; Lexa had the sense there was something messy underneath. “How is Clarke?” she asked, failing in her attempt to sound casual. “She won’t answer my calls or return my texts.”

Lexa felt a flicker of pity even though she knew she shouldn’t. It was Abby’s fault, after all, that Clarke had cut off contact. “She’s strong. She’s adapting.”

She was buffeted by a swirl of pheromones, anger and confusion and despair predominant. She wasn’t sure Abby even knew what she was broadcasting, with the way her fingers were curled into the edge of the couch and her eyes betraying that she was half there, half lost in the past.

“She’s always been strong-willed,” Abby said, the words as proud as they were gruff. “Once she had something fixed in her mind, she couldn’t be swayed. Not if she thought it was the right thing to do.” She shook her head, as if pulling herself out of the memories. “Her heart gets her in trouble.”

Then why, Lexa fumed silently, had Abby been so careless with it?

Abby’s eyes flashed up to meet hers, defensive, as if sensing what Lexa was trying very hard not to say; Lexa had to consider the very real possibility she wasn’t doing an excellent job of managing her expression. “Is it wrong to want the best for her?”

“Wanting the best for her and dictating to her what’s best for her isn’t the same thing,” Lexa snapped out before she could stop herself. She’d joined Abby with every intention of not letting her anger get the best of her because this was Clarke’s mom and the last thing she wanted to do was make the situation even more contentious, but damn it all to hell. Abby had made Clarke very, _very_ sad.

It was into this sudden and volatile tension that Clarke arrived home with enough urgency that the door bounced off of the wall at her entrance.

Mother and daughter regarded each other warily. Lexa could practically hear a clock ticking in the background, counting down to the inevitable explosion.

“Mom.”

“Clarke.”

Clarke looked at Lexa long enough for Lexa to nod an assurance that she was fine before squaring up with her mother again. “Why are you here?”

Clarke’s jaw ticked. Abby’s jaw ticked. Lexa very, very briefly considered backing out of the room slowly in hopes she wouldn’t be noticed.

“You haven’t been answering my calls.”

“I wasn’t ready to talk to you yet.”

Abby straightened, preparing for what she clearly anticipated would be a battle. “I’ve been worried about you.”

“You don’t need to worry about me, Mom. I can take care of myself.” Clarke mirrored her mother’s posture, and Lexa wondered if they’d ever seen the similarities in themselves. “When I can’t, Lexa takes care of me.”

Her chest may have swelled with pride. Lexa didn’t want to gloat, necessarily, but it objectively seemed like the kind of thing that was worth gloating about. Fuck yeah she could protect this house and everything within.

To her surprise, Abby’s aggressive front crumbled. “I don’t want to fight, Clarke,” she said tiredly. All of her angles disappeared with the words, leaving behind someone softer. Someone filled with regret, fear, sorrow, and sadness. “I’m sorry about Christmas. You’re an adult, and it’s your life. I don’t always have to agree with your decisions, but I need to learn to accept the fact that they’re yours to make.”

From the way Clarke was blinking at her mother in shock and confusion, Lexa surmised that Abby’s words had caught them both off guard.

“Please, Clarke. Can we talk?”

Clarke looked over at Lexa questioningly. Lexa wasn’t entirely certain what she was being asked, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try to provide it.

“I’ll be in the bedroom if you need me.” She studied Clarke, looking for any sign of discomfort or hesitation, and ignored the way Abby’s eyes narrowed at the lack of a _my_. “Unless you want me to stay.”

Even though Clarke looked like she did, in fact, want Lexa to stay, she shrugged off the offer with a soft smile. “I’ll be fine,” she said, stepping closer and lowering her voice.

Lexa could only trust her.

\------

Either because sound didn’t travel as well in their apartment as it had at Clarke’s childhood home or because Clarke and her mother refrained from yelling at one another, Lexa found eavesdropping a futile endeavor. It was agonizing, straining for even the smallest hint of what was happening only a hallway away, but she didn’t let herself give in to the temptation creep closer.

It turned out there wasn’t much to do in the bedroom in the middle of the afternoon when she was by herself, so after a while spent perched anxiously on the edge of the bed in anticipation of the afternoon’s next movement, Lexa decided to take a nap. It was where things had been going when she’d been on the couch, in that beautiful time before Abigail Griffin had shown up at their door bringing with her emotions and confusion. As time stretched on without meaning – she was caught in the undefinable space where anticipation skewed her perception, rendering minutes into hours – the only acceptable step seemed to be to kick down the covers, wrap an arm under her pillow, and seek the time-negating comfort of sleep.

She woke to the brush of fingers against her forehead, pushing back the hair that always managed to find its way into her face when she slept.

“Hey,” Clarke said, leaning up on her elbow beside her. She was smiling and Lexa smiled back reflexively, hoping Clarke’s apparent good mood was a positive indicator. “Would you…” Clarke said, turning onto her side and burrowing back until she was pressed against Lexa’s front. Clarke’s hand found hers and tugged it over her waist, and Lexa wrapped her arm around her tightly.

“Are you okay?” she asked, shifting Clarke’s hair out of the way and hooking her chin over her shoulder.

“I’m okay.”

Silence fell between them, but Clarke wasn’t tense or agitated against her. It was a silence of contemplation, not discomfort, and Lexa wasn’t going to be the one to break it.

“She apologized,” Clarke said after some time, ribs expanding as she took in a deep breath. “She doesn’t do that very often. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting it. It’s not that she’s never been wrong. She just usually doesn’t think she’s wrong, much less admit it.” Clarke’s sudden, short laugh vibrated against Lexa’s chest. “She tried really hard to pretend like she was okay about us living together. She didn’t do a great job, but she tried.”

“In her defense,” Lexa said, as dryly as she could manage, “I am a known reprobate.”

Clarke rolled over just far enough to be able to see her. “I’m not entirely sure what that word means, but I think you’re making a joke. Are you making a joke, Lexa Woods?”

Lexa blushed, but just a little. It was an acceptable amount of blushing, she decided, given the way Clarke was grinning at her. “Maybe.”

“Fuck, I love you. You’re such a dork.”

She wanted to argue the point, but then Lexa remembered she was wearing borrowed Star Wars underpants. They weren’t hers, but their sheer proximity was enough to tip the scales.

“She wants to give me money.”

Clarke settled back into the position she’d been in before, pressed tight to Lexa. For a moment, Lexa regretted it, despite the sense it gave her that she could protect Clarke from anything. That felt secondary to seeing, to being able to try and read the minute hints laid buried in the tension at the corner of Clarke’s mouth or the angle and cant of her brow.

“I don’t know if I can take it. Not yet.” Clarke swallowed hard and pressed her face into the pillow. “Maybe that’s stupid. I don’t know. She offered to put it in an account. Said it was mine, my inheritance from Dad’s life insurance policy, but that she’d pay for school again so I didn’t have to touch it.”

At the lingering grief that always crept into Clarke’s voice whenever she mentioned her dad, Lexa reflexively tightened her hold in silent encouragement.

“Whatever you decide to do,” Lexa said carefully, “I’m glad she made the offer. I’m glad she came, and I’m glad you talked.”

“Me too. I think she’s going to try to come back up in a few weeks for lunch.” Clarke played with Lexa’s fingers absently, tracing each with her own. “Dad always kept her human. I think she’s been a little more lost without him than I realized.”

It seemed like an unfair burden for Clarke to take upon herself, this implied reconstruction of her mother, but Lexa was moderately sure this was the time for listening, not problem-solving.

“Anyway,” Clarke said, having apparently expended all of the emotional energy she could muster for the day, “you know it’s only like seven in the evening, right?”

It didn’t seem like it could be right, but a glance at the alarm clock confirmed it.

“So I’m thinking you and me and a romantic dinner of leftovers. You can fire up a few candles. I’ll handle the microwaving.”

Lexa pressed a kiss behind Clarke’s ear even as she rolled her eyes. “How could I say no to such a proposal?”

“You pretty much have to. I know your dirty secret, baby.”

Lexa pushed up onto her elbow and leaned over far enough see the edge of Clarke’s smirk. “And what dirty secret is that?”

“You’re wearing my lucky boxers.”

“I…” Lexa spluttered. “I’m… Clarke, how did you even know that?”

“I saw the waistband over the top of your jeans before I woke you up.”

Lexa felt compelled to defend herself. “They’re comfortable.”

“I know.”

“Really soft, you know.”

“I do know.”

“Did you call them your lucky boxers?”

“I did.” Clarke shifted onto her back so she could look up at Lexa. “I was wearing them the luckiest day of my life.”

“That was horrible,” Lexa protested weakly. “Objectively horrible.”

Clarke shrugged, entirely unabashed. “Maybe, but true.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I almost forgot. I have a [tumblr](http://outlyingoutlier.tumblr.com/) now. Gonna be real honest - I don't know what to do with it (or how), so I'll probably just reblog stuff?


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